Mea Culpa & Porro Ago Victoriana

OK, so I didn't publish an elevator pitch for Fist Full of Zombies ...

OK, I never got around to publishing the concept art for Golden Age ...

But by an overwhelming majority vote, Full Steam ahead is going ... well ...

Sorry Gary, but I hope you will like it nonetheless. I'll try to post fun stuff like character synopsis, setting notes, etc, etc as I go, but the COOL news is that there are but 3 days left until the actual WRITING can begin.

Oh ... wow

3 days. Hunh. Now where was that paper bag ?

Tipping the Scales ...

OK, normally I wouldn't so this when the poll is still open, but the lead that Full Steam Ahead has garnered makes it pretty solid for first right now anyway.

I have been working on the Full steam ahead story with a good friend of mine for a while now with the idea of doing it as a graphic novel (which I still fully intend to do, even if I do it as a straight novel), and so I have some initial concept artwork he roughed out for me. If you are interested, you can see it after the jump. I will also be posting some older concept art from the Golden Age concept a little later on. Alas - there is currently NO concept art for either Fistfull of Zombies nor I Was a High School Monster, though Chris has indicated he might be amenable to thoe as well ...

Elevator Pitch #3 - Full Steam Ahead !

Science can create miracles, but can it replace magic ? Science can make a man fly, can provide sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, can light the darkness and send our voice to the stars, but can it bring beauty to a single heart ? What happens when science has answered all the questions and there’s no more space for imagination anymore ?

The future is in jeopardy, but there is a plan.

The Professor has travelled back in time to save us all. He has been sent to the Victorian Age, the last brief flourishing of a shared belief in both the majesty of scientific progress and the faith in the invisible world of faerie and hearth-magics.

But he can’t save us alone. It will take not the team of amazingly gifted individuals he has gathered around him, but a boy. A very special boy who has no idea what adventures await him.

Elevator Pitch #2 - I Was a High School Monster

Vampires, Vampires, Werewolves, Vampires, maybe a ghost thrown in here and there … that’s the landscape of a weighty percent of Young Adult fiction in the market right now, and it’s quite successful ! But those aren’t the ONLY things that go bump in the night !

I Was a High School Monster turns the idea of Vampire Teen Fiction on its ear by including the “neglected” movie monsters of the past focusing mainly on the classic Universal Monster movies but giving them a new modern twist. What if the love interest isn’t a brooding vampire who sparkles in the sunlight (sorry Kat) but a promethean “monster” created by cloning a young Marilyn Monroe (a la Frankenstein’s Monster) ? How about a schoolmate who happens to be an unknowing descendant of Imhotep (The Mummy) who is consistently wrapped in bandages from the injuries suffered while participating in various extreme sports ? What happens when a young lady begins to manifest gills and webbing after skinny dipping in the local lake (Creature from the Black Lagoon). These and more tongue-in-cheek homages await a new transfer student.

Visit Hammer High, local high school for the California town of San Onestro – a Sea Side community founded by a very special group of Hollywood retirees who worked with Universal during the 1920s, 30s, and 40s.

Elevator Pitch #1 - The Golden Age

I'm going to post a little bit about each of the proposed projects, just to let you get a better idea of what I'm thinking before you decide what project you would most like to follow. Since the two underdog projects right now are The Golden Age and High School Monsters (still working on that title BTW), I'll begin with them and then move on to Full Steam Ahead and A Fist Full of Zombies (Fist Full of Gristle ?).

Anyway - on to The Golden Age !

In 1936 American athlete Jesse Owens stunned the world by winning four Olympic gold medals. It was an upset victory for the underdog against a highly favored German athlete competing in Berlin at the height of National Socialist power. Outwardly, Hitler was gracious in defeat, but inwardly he seethed. The world was unaware that Jesse Owens had humiliated not only the Nazi ideal of Aryan supremacy, but had defeated the worlds first scientifically enhanced Übermensch.

The Golden Age chronicles the attempted American response to the Nazi superman project, following a dozen unlikely mystery men and women on their journey as they grow from a project in propaganda to true heroes. From the Veteran, a retired chain-smoking WWI soldier bearing a sharp resemblance to Clark Gable and possessed of an uncanny knack for sensing danger, to abrasively intellectual super-scientist Edison’s Daughter, from The Mesmerist, an eerie medium-mentalist with an addiction to fame and morphine, to Lady Bast, the wealthy socialite daughter of a famed Egyptologist and bearer of the amulet of the Eternal Eye, the diverse team of would-be champions must overcome not just America’s more esoteric enemies but the increasingly chafing oversight of their government handlers.

A Well Deserved Kick in the Pants

Allrighty then.

I'm going to take part in National Novel Writing Month. My lovely and loving wife has oriented me and set me a stumbling down this path, for which I am painfully grateful.
Scary.

But this will hopefully give me the kick in the pants that I need to get going on at least SOME kind of written treatment of at least one of the ideas pelting around in my noggin, and who knows, might even lead to bigger and brighter things.

Now here's where YOU come in.

If you are here, it's because I value your opinion. No, not just that - I think your opinion has actual VALUE to me personally. I want YOU to help me in my endeavor. I want you to take a critical look at what I'm writing, my process, etc. Feel free to be brutally honest, warmly encouraging, whatever works for you (and/or whatever you think will work for ME).

And first up - please help me to figure out which of several ideas I should attempt to wring 50,000 words out of during the month of November.

So PLEASE check out the Poll to the right and let me know what you think sounds the most fun.

Action Adventure

NOTE: this is reprinted from the first post I ever Blogged way back in 2005 in another Blog called "For Those Who Came in Late" - kept for posterity

I've said it before, and I'll probably say it again:

Nazi's are just about the best villians EVER. There's just no moral ambiguity about Nazis - so theres no question of whether they deserve to be belted in the face, thrown off of a truck, shot with a Tommy gun while the stub of a stogey juts from the corner of your clenched jaw, brass casings pelting the ground in a staccato counterpoint to the whining riccochets .....

Nazi's represent all that is good about villians - they are bad, no doubt to it, but it's that cool kind of bad... the kind of evil that involves basic black with nifty acessories, mericiless stares, and stern accents.

Robots are pretty good too .....

Do I have to mention the incredible synergy of Nazi Robots ? I think I'll just let that image percolate for a bit ......



OK, enough elipses .... for now.