I have a spa!!
Yes, folks, after weeks of renovations (following me busting some ligaments in my right wrist, but that's just a by the way) I can now sit in my spa after a long day of destroying retaining walls, and bubble away the aches.
This is all Sabine's fault, BTW. She started with the reno thing in her house, and being a copycat… After finishing with Blood Ties and a 50% of the way through my second draft of another novel (not Stargate), I spat the dummy when the head of my shower fell off, and decided that despite one arm being in a sling...okay, supposed to be in a sling...I had to have a new bathroom. One thing led to another and, well, the next thing I know I'm also rebuilding the backyard ponds (the busted right wrist was because one pond was a mess) and then moved on to the fences and retaining walls - still without a bathroom.
In the bathroom, I'm now down to needing towel rails, the mirror installed, and some grout on a decorative pebble feature behind the door. I was halfway through re-varnishing the overhead beams in the hallway (which I've now decided need to be done throughout the entire house since they look so good in the bathroom) when a carton of Blood Ties arrived in the mail!
This is the point where I discover that the plumber, tiler, and spa guys are all Stargate fans. Oh, and so is the guy from Tile Wizards, who made certain that the extra six tiles I needed were couriered in from a thousand kilometres away overnight - and they chucked in a spare box in case I needed them.
Stargate fans - man, I love you guys!
So before I go back to the real world (the ponds are finished, but the retaining walls, a fence, and the overhead beams are beckoning, and the kitchen is now on my radar) I just wanted to touch base and say I hope you all enjoy Blood Ties.
The glitch with Ronon's immunity: - as James (Swallow, not Beth's husband) pointed out, this is the nature of writing in an ongoing series: television trumps novels. What starts out to be a lose thread that appeared to be headed in one direction is discarded in favour of another thread. MGM didn’t correct this when they were editing Blood Ties, and their word is law…until the show's writers choose to reweave threads into something that suits them. We’ve stumbled over this before - Daniel’s birthday, the spelling of secondary character’s names, and Ronon’s tattoo are cases in point – and we will again.
Is it frustrating to me as a writer? Nope, interesting and challenging. Stargate started out as a relatively straightforward structure that diverged into a different structure following a different set of blueprints (I’m not going to detail the differences between Devlin and Wright’s intents) then rooms and attics, basements and corridors were added over the course of ten years (eleven now), when only three to five years were envisaged. There’s absolutely no possibility of renovating what’s become a maze within a still-growing mega-mansion. What’s amazing is that given all of this, there’s so few continuity glitches.
Maybe that’s why I’m renovating my house – displaced frustration? There’s a thesis topic there for anyone interested
.
Working with the characters is a similar thing. It’s challenging and intriguing to sift through characters' actions and reverse engineer their motivations then apply those same characteristics to our stories. I personally feel that I have so much to work with in terms of complex and contradictory personality quirks that I have no desire to take them or secondary characters into offshoot worlds.
For similar reasons, I like character deaths.
I know that will be heresy to some of you, and so I should explain. As a fan, I hate character deaths and often find I’m deeply angered by them. I’ve made an emotional investment in this character, and how dare some writer sitting in a cubicle in Hollywood or Vancouver cause me such wrenching pain? But as a writer, the first thing that crosses my mind is wow, how good will this be when messing with the surviving characters’ heads? Think of all that angst we can use! Beth dealt with the emotional fallout of cumulative deaths in Sheppard’s character in Casualties of War. Carson’s death impinges on characters, and influences their behaviour, in Blood Ties. Death, especially of a major character (and this was certainly the case in Star Wars, with Han and his son) gives writers meat to play with and sets up all kinds of tensions and ripple effects. So, as a fan, I feel the same pain as other fans and throw things at the television screen, but as a writer, I rub my hands together and start imagining possibilities.
On that note, I shall leave you all to consider the ripple effects and potential new storylines following Blood Ties, and go back to ripping out the retaining wall. In the event that my laptop once more vanishes under mounds of rearranged furniture for a few weeks, Merry Christmas all, and Happy New Year!
PS, Has anyone actually seen a copy of the magazine with Jen and my short story, 'K-T'? I've been told it was published a while back, but it's like a vacuum consumed all the copies in this country.
Yes, folks, after weeks of renovations (following me busting some ligaments in my right wrist, but that's just a by the way) I can now sit in my spa after a long day of destroying retaining walls, and bubble away the aches.
This is all Sabine's fault, BTW. She started with the reno thing in her house, and being a copycat… After finishing with Blood Ties and a 50% of the way through my second draft of another novel (not Stargate), I spat the dummy when the head of my shower fell off, and decided that despite one arm being in a sling...okay, supposed to be in a sling...I had to have a new bathroom. One thing led to another and, well, the next thing I know I'm also rebuilding the backyard ponds (the busted right wrist was because one pond was a mess) and then moved on to the fences and retaining walls - still without a bathroom.
In the bathroom, I'm now down to needing towel rails, the mirror installed, and some grout on a decorative pebble feature behind the door. I was halfway through re-varnishing the overhead beams in the hallway (which I've now decided need to be done throughout the entire house since they look so good in the bathroom) when a carton of Blood Ties arrived in the mail!
This is the point where I discover that the plumber, tiler, and spa guys are all Stargate fans. Oh, and so is the guy from Tile Wizards, who made certain that the extra six tiles I needed were couriered in from a thousand kilometres away overnight - and they chucked in a spare box in case I needed them.
Stargate fans - man, I love you guys!
So before I go back to the real world (the ponds are finished, but the retaining walls, a fence, and the overhead beams are beckoning, and the kitchen is now on my radar) I just wanted to touch base and say I hope you all enjoy Blood Ties.
The glitch with Ronon's immunity: - as James (Swallow, not Beth's husband) pointed out, this is the nature of writing in an ongoing series: television trumps novels. What starts out to be a lose thread that appeared to be headed in one direction is discarded in favour of another thread. MGM didn’t correct this when they were editing Blood Ties, and their word is law…until the show's writers choose to reweave threads into something that suits them. We’ve stumbled over this before - Daniel’s birthday, the spelling of secondary character’s names, and Ronon’s tattoo are cases in point – and we will again.
Is it frustrating to me as a writer? Nope, interesting and challenging. Stargate started out as a relatively straightforward structure that diverged into a different structure following a different set of blueprints (I’m not going to detail the differences between Devlin and Wright’s intents) then rooms and attics, basements and corridors were added over the course of ten years (eleven now), when only three to five years were envisaged. There’s absolutely no possibility of renovating what’s become a maze within a still-growing mega-mansion. What’s amazing is that given all of this, there’s so few continuity glitches.
Maybe that’s why I’m renovating my house – displaced frustration? There’s a thesis topic there for anyone interested
.Working with the characters is a similar thing. It’s challenging and intriguing to sift through characters' actions and reverse engineer their motivations then apply those same characteristics to our stories. I personally feel that I have so much to work with in terms of complex and contradictory personality quirks that I have no desire to take them or secondary characters into offshoot worlds.
For similar reasons, I like character deaths.
I know that will be heresy to some of you, and so I should explain. As a fan, I hate character deaths and often find I’m deeply angered by them. I’ve made an emotional investment in this character, and how dare some writer sitting in a cubicle in Hollywood or Vancouver cause me such wrenching pain? But as a writer, the first thing that crosses my mind is wow, how good will this be when messing with the surviving characters’ heads? Think of all that angst we can use! Beth dealt with the emotional fallout of cumulative deaths in Sheppard’s character in Casualties of War. Carson’s death impinges on characters, and influences their behaviour, in Blood Ties. Death, especially of a major character (and this was certainly the case in Star Wars, with Han and his son) gives writers meat to play with and sets up all kinds of tensions and ripple effects. So, as a fan, I feel the same pain as other fans and throw things at the television screen, but as a writer, I rub my hands together and start imagining possibilities.
On that note, I shall leave you all to consider the ripple effects and potential new storylines following Blood Ties, and go back to ripping out the retaining wall. In the event that my laptop once more vanishes under mounds of rearranged furniture for a few weeks, Merry Christmas all, and Happy New Year!
PS, Has anyone actually seen a copy of the magazine with Jen and my short story, 'K-T'? I've been told it was published a while back, but it's like a vacuum consumed all the copies in this country.
Anubis smiles on you, EAG.
We've also been known to seek each other's input on books: I supplied a few U.S. details to Sonny and Jen for Roswell, and the list of ways Sonny and Sally improved CoW is too long to enumerate.
I'm just, y'know, building the drama... I think you guys are gonna like it, though...
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