While I may need prescription glasses to see, funnily enough I have perfect hindsight. I know exactly what I did wrong:

• Had only the barest idea of the plot,
• Had no idea who the characters were…
• …or their drivers,
• And didn’t write nearly regularly enough.

I’ve mentioned it before on the site, but actually starting to write is one of the hardest things for me to. Once I get going though it’s pretty hard to get me to stop.

So the plan for now is to write and write and write. I don’t know what I’ll write, but I need to keep the fires burning. That means throwing up a framework around my creative writing. I need to lock down my weekly output and what and where I need to improve. Hopefully with  year’s practice I can come back to Script Frenzy and finish the damn thing.

It’s not that I don’t want to write. I love writing. I like building tiny universes and populating them with semi-interesting people.

This is very similar to what happened with NaNoWriMo, except it happened far earlier. I was all set to write my amazing-but barely-thought-out screenplay,  but then that devious black box of distraction just had to rear it controller-shaped head and insist I pay it some attention. And who was I to argue?

It’s a tad cliché, but coming home after a big day at work, there’s nothing better than sending a few digital hollow-points down the old telephone line. I’m just not in the right mindset for creating a stellar piece of writing at the moment.

That fact that I’m even a day late with the regular update is proof enough.

Cannot wait for this.

Cover to Return of Bruce Wayne #3 via DCU Blog.

Green Lantern #43

Remember those books from the 90’s where the bad guy, or some other “special guest star” would take over a book, spray painting or otherwise covering up the main title? I kind of wish they did something like that here, as this book is totally Black Hand’s story.

It serves as a nice prelude to Blackest Night, retelling Black Hand’s life story and touching on his childhood, first appearance in a Green Lantern book, his role in the recent — and overly long — Secret Origin arc, right up to Green Lantern: Rebirth. There’s also a callback to the German-speaking  Gremlins that kidnapped him soon after. It looks like Johns has another bad guy/girl waiting in the wings once Blackest Night wraps up. Unless they’re a major player and I’ve completely misjudged who it was supposed to be.

While I can appreciate Philip Tan’s character designs, his rushed, rough pencilling on the book itself really didn’t do anything for me. Doug Mahnke on the other hand should be perfect fit for this book. I’m only familiar with his work on Superman: Beyond and the last issue of Final Crisis. But the way he was able to have the characters convey even the smallest emotion should be a great boon to a book entirely devoted to exploring large facets of the emotional spectrum.

Wednesday Comics #1 (of 12)

After Trinity I was all but ready to give up on the weekly comic format. Trudging through 52 issues of epic space opera that alternated between molasses-speed introspection and smash cuts of earth-shaking battles took a lot out of me.  But I think DC had the measure of their audience. They knew that the next weekly had to be something special. Something with a touch of novelty to draw an audience made up of those already worn down and those looking to break into the comics scene. Something with a strong creative team to keep people coming back. And I think they’ve done it.

There’s 14, one page stories contained within, all of varying quality (but none of them terrible).  That they’re all set “outside continuity” isn’t a great problem. The character’s basic personalities and drivers are all there. Green Lantern wears green, flies in space; Superman beats the hell out of robots while protecting humans.

Though this is only the first issue I do have my favourites already. Neil Gaiman and Mike Allred’s Metamorpho is just the right amount of 1950’s pulp adventuring; while Jimmy Palmiotti and Amanda Conner’s Supergirl is, in a word, cute. Sgt. Rock, Batman, Kamandi are three more stories that have me biting my nails and hanging for the next issue. I guess the only story I really have a problem with is Wonder Woman. It’s overly wordy and the panel layout makes it incredibly hard to follow. If they’re going to continue  framign it in the same way I’d suggest using arrows to direct the reader from one panel to the next, much like traditional large format newspaper comics have.

I really hope this works out for DC. I’d love to see this done as a yearly event. Sometimes its just nice to read a comic that just wants to entertain you and isn’t hung up in pushing things in “a bold new direction!”

My local comics shop had completely sold out of copies by Monday. So hopefully DC see this as a sign that most of the speculators have left the market and that there’s people out there willing to read their stories regardless of what the damn thing is printed on.

Complete List

Booster Gold #22
Green Lantern #43
Wednesday Comics #1 (of 12)
Dark X-Men Beginning #1 (of 3)
Ms Marvel #41
X-Men: Legacy #226

6/365, originally uploaded by The BlueBoy.

The real estate/landlord cancelled last weekend’s house inspection 30 minutes before they were due to arrive. They’ve rescheduled for this weekend, so now we’re going through and giving the house a quick once over just in case they decide to show up this time.

5/365, originally uploaded by The BlueBoy.

Not impressed with the quality of the first four shots I’ve gone back to the books to relearn how to take decent photos.

4/365, originally uploaded by The BlueBoy.

A good shot poorly executed. Way too much motion blur for a close up I think.

I may try this taking shot again later down the track.

3/365, originally uploaded by The BlueBoy.

The garden has returned for another year. This time it’s chilli plants and sweet basil.

I gave mum a sample of the basil and she liked it so much she came back a hacked a huge chunk out of it. The plant seems to have survived the ordeal however.

2/365, originally uploaded by The BlueBoy.

If the sun is out it’s very rare that I’ll take these off.
Graded tinting means that when it gets dark I can still see just fine through the bottom of the lens.

1/365, originally uploaded by The BlueBoy.

Mike, Chris and Justine are all a third of the way through posting a year’s worth of photos. One a day.

I’d been planning to start myself, but wanted to wait until I hit a particular milestone: my 29th birthday. Now I can post a photo a day. Detailing the last 365 days of my youth. After that it’s all down hill. ;)

So I’ve made amends. I had the day off work today, so I’ve processed just over 20 of the Tasmania photos and thrown them up. They’re not in linear continuity, but they do have a bit of commentary so it shouldn’t be too hard to follow them.

As always my photos are available here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/theblueboy/

That’s why I decided that it was time I bought a laptop and get a home network going again. With the new workplace willing to chip in, it should’ve been easy. Of course nothing ever is.

After a bit of research I found the laptop I wanted, found a good price at JB HiFi and promptly set up a layby on the last one in the store. Then they promptly sold it to someone else. Needless to say I was not impressed by this turn of events. Negotiations went well. They asked for two days to find me a replacement, I countered with half a day. I won. I also learned that JB HiFi is next to useless when it comes to anything outside the CD/DVD/Video Game sphere.

The laptop has been great so far. With the wireless network setup (802.11g so far, I’m working on 802.11n) Ange and I have been living it up. Hotmail from the dining table, internet radio from the couch, and now with the HDMI cable we can watch commercial-free TV shows on the 32 inch LCD.

I’ve got a couple of little projects on the cards (a website to build and the photo5 thing) so the site may run a little dry. With only four days left for photo5, things are going to be extra hectic too. Just a well I didn’t opt to participate in NaNoWriMo this year.

Expect Tasmania related posts sometime in the near future.

Though I signed up mid last week, my box only just arrived today. I’ve only been at this new job for 3 weeks, so the box had been sitting on some lady’s desk while she tried to figure out who I was. Lesson learned, next time I need a package delivered I’ll add every detail I can to the address field. Geographical coordinates, altitude, distance to the sun, you name it.

For something that was made entirely from cardboard, the box was nearly impossible to open. The little compartments containing the “props” were harder still. But, with a little persistence I got there in the end. Once inside the boxes I discovered I’ve been given a red balloon, piece of blue chalk, strip of yellow dots and a sheet of blue cellophane. If I had a pair of blunt scissors and a bottle of clag it’d be grade four all over again.

So I’ve got until mid-November to take five photos, featuring one item in each. Which is good because even though I’ve had almost a week to think up ideas I’m still drawing a blank.

I’d sure like to have a chat with whoever decided that public holidays in Victoria should only be peppered through the first half of the year. There’s New Years in January, my birthday in February, Labour Day in March, the Easter weekend in April and Queens Birthday in June. Coming out of Queens Birthday there’s a long steep climb to November and the Cup Day holiday. Then Christmas is almost two months after that. It’s no wonder people here go crazy over Winter.

Determined not to get sent to the crazyhouse we booked four nights of bliss at The Hill of Content in Phillip Island. We’d stayed in one of their Lofts last year and had a great time, despite nearly cracking my head open on the exposed beams. This year we booked Havana. A 3-room suite decked out much like the inside of a humidor: climate controlled, woody, with just a hint of red velvety goodness. Not entirely unintentional I suppose, given the copy of The Havana Cigar displayed on the coffee table.

We hadn’t planned anything for the entire stay, so we were free to do whatever we wanted. Which wasn’t much at all. We were there to relax, not sight-see. We did get a daily routine down quickly though: wake up, breakfast, shower, drive out to attraction, have lunch, come back to the suite (optional), drive out to the second attraction, gather dinner components, come back to the suite, dinner, then finally sleep.

At the two wineries we drank some good wine, at the eateries we ate some great food and at the minigolf place we treated ourselves to a delightful round of…golf. What’d you expect? We’d seen the penguins last year so didn’t feel the need to expose ourselves to the freezing cold twilight elements again. We did pass it on the way to visit the Nobbies one blustery mid-morning. While I’m on weather, apart from that “crispness”, the weather was actually pretty good for mid-winter. I can’t forgot to mention the Rhyll Fishing Park opposite the bed and breakfast. While it wasn’t cheap, it was still fun for Ange and I to catch our own dinner.

Phillip Island really is one of my favourite places in Victoria and the holiday was damn near perfect. It only loses marks because I drove 15km before realising I’d forgotten to return the key to the suite. I can’t hold that against the island though.

On Saturday Mike and I met up for another round of photography. Our second, in whats turning out to be a monthly event. We’d agreed on a 7:45am start, but I didn’t get there until just after 8am. I put the blame squarely on horrible, horrible winter currently gripping Melbourne. Both me and the car aren’t big fans of sub-Antartic temperatures.

When not grumbling about the weather, I managed to take a good amount of photos. I easily cleared 200, a feat easily done considering we spent almost six hours on the job. For the most part we roamed the city streets, but a quick suggestion by Mike saw us wander down to Southbank. Of course no photoshoot of Melbourne would be complete without a visit to the ferris wheel (Mike’s words, not mine), so we followed the Yarra River upstream to Birrung Marr.

As it was my second time out with the new 50mm lens I wanted to see what I could get out of it. Although Ange wasn’t taken by any of the pre-process photos I’d taken, I have a few favourites. I’ve put three of the better ones on Flickr, but more will come.

I was beginning to get very critical of my photography style around that time. After looking through the photos I took in the Prom nothing jumped out at me and it felt like I’d lost my spark. Fast forward to last weekend. My sister, Sarah was celebrating her 21st birthday, and asked me to act as official photographer. I was a bit worried about how my shots would turn out, based on my opinion of my new years work. But tonight, after going through the 120 odd shots, I’m actually really impressed with the work I did. So the break really did wonders.

It’s probably a good thing I took that break as well. I was able to occupy the creative side of my brain with less visual stimuli. I finally finished off Brave New World and, even began writing down basic plot points for some story ideas I’ve got floating around in my brain.

This is also one of the reasons the site has been quiet of late. Even though Charles has been hanging out for the next installment of my random thoughts, in my head, it was either the site or my stories. Now that I have most of the plotting work done I’ll try and keep this thing updated more often. I may even post some excerpts of my writing.

Hey, now there’s an idea!

• St Kilda Pier
• The South end of the CBD and it’s many alleys (including the graffiti-ridden Hosier Lane)
• Carlton Gardens
• The Exhibition Building
• Alexandra Gardens
• Shrine of Remembrance; and the
• Royal Botanical Gardens

Photos taken that day can be found here. Damien’s are here, and Mike’s are here.

I had a lot of fun, especially when I got to use the big boy lens. (Thanks for making Captain Stumpy look inadequate by the way.) The pancakes were a welcome energy boost before we crossed the border and headed into the Botanical Gardens and it’s surrounds.
I’m looking forward to the next session, guys.

Oh and top marks to Damien who, when asked if we were terrorists, pointed to his backpack and said: “This isn’t a backpack. It’s a bomb.”

Bravo, good sir. Bravo.

On the other hand all this learning seems to have made me a lot more critical of my shots. I took 27 shots on Thursday and Friday as I was up in Daylesford on a retreat. I can honestly say that not one is good enough to go up on Flickr. Whether I’m just being too hard on myself is just something to ponder.