This cartoon is a nice succinct parody of the depressing SF that seems to be the rule today. I have to admit that my major project is pretty dark, set in a time of impending war, with social injustice, corruption, and tyranny major forces pushing at the society I have imagined. But beneath it all I'm attempting to show that the deep humanity of the characters wins over all even as their hopes are threatened by forces greater than any one of them can deal with.



I think the story will end on a note of hope.

Meanwhile new inspirations for stories are all bright and shiny - mainly thanks to growing older and wiser I think. The Shine Anthology is much anticipated, and my submission has begun to gel into a universe that I think I would like to write in for a while. Perhaps if only as light relief from the dark materials of my major work. So in order to push that project forward I've written some treatments for a series of linked short stories that I can complete and release as a series but that will hold up as a integrated whole.

Expect to see word of progress on that front.

I've been researching various interactive technologies for use in my current project - a high tech home where the technology disappears into the fabric of the home providing utility but without the obviousness of most 20th Century high tech.

Decadence, if you like, is where an objects utility is hidden away and the appearance of utility is flaunted. For instance the audiophile porn of tubes/valve amplifiers on display for sake of screaming I'm a retro piece of kit and I don't care.

I prefer technology to be subsumed into the space and the utility is only revealed at the most minimal level. For instance those big loudspeakers audiophiles have - I prefer my speakers to be invisible - heard but not seen. So I've been installing invisible speakers for the past year or so in several projects. Now we've hit upon a way of creating invisible light switches as well as a way of providing an interface to control the lighting that is as naked of technology as possible while providing function. A small glowing pin point of light is touched or even waved at and it responds with a pre-programmed response.

We're embedding the invisible switches and LEDs into Corian to create an interactive surface that hides away when not required. Walk into our high tech space and you will be hard pressed to see any technology.

This might be the height of decadence - in full circle we flaunt the minimal no tech space at a time where our homes are more full of it than ever of gadgets.

I look forward to a time where even the flat surfaces of a room can reform through embedded actuators and sensors to create new spaces, and new functions.

I've found this amazing clothing show that displays just such interaction and movement through hidden actuators... we're looking at how we can do this to homes as well... so this is very inspirational.

It's corny and unnecessary to make resolutions - but the turn of the year does make for a handy time to start a fresh habit and kick old ones. So damnit I'm going to start a habit - perhaps even a vice.

I tapped out a screenplay outline on my iPhone... (I was inspired as I tried to sleep on a flight to Auckland) and used the notes app but then slowly realised that there is no good way to get it off again - and I have to hope that it backs up nicely as well. However I'll probably take the opportunity to rework the outline and tap it into Final Draft... and an initial draft at least. Since I've spent a lot of 2008 editing and doctoring other's scripts I think it only fair to start off the new year working on something for myself... before it all happens again. The dearth of projects also recommends this course of action to me as well. If I'm not making money I may as well create dreams on paper.

Time will tell if another new resolve continues... updating this blog a bit more regularly.

A strange article to be inspired to make one of my infrequent posts but this article is pretty thought provoking.

No Babies - Declining Population in Europe

As a future this is one that few if any writers have pondered. I recall that David Brin suggested that this current reduction is evolution in practice and as the couples that lack the urgent desire to have children fail to do so, the ones which are keen will have children similarly enthusiastic. This means that we may be living at a time when evolution will reset a few things and in a few or several generations we'll have a population enthusiastic to have children again and the population will start increasing... with no let up as the gene for 'child bearing passivity' knocked out in the 1990s and 2000's.

I shall put my pondering cap on...

Yes so it is no secret that I'm useless as a blogger and that it is pointless to visit this site regularly.

However with Twitter it is easier and faster to post useless updates to my life stream... so I've added a Twitter box to the sidebar. More efficient to read Twitter directly, but what the heck - visit me here again instead if you like.

Perhaps one day I'll get organised and focussed enough to keep this up to date.

Back again - and I failed miserably to update the blog with anything from the worldcon or even much about the Chengdu SF World Convention.

Nor did I update the blog theme and post images from my paintings - all good intentions disolved in a series of parties, beer and the goodness of hanging out with new found friends.

I think that probably sums up the last 2 weeks very well.

I'll write up more detail shortly but suffice to say that Chengdu was the friendliest event I've ever attended - a lot of care went into this, the first of a series of regular cons in China. Highlights for me were meeting the Chinese SF fans, and talking to the writers. Everyone was very accessible and approachable during the 3 days. I wish I'd not rushed off to Japan so quickly, but I'm also pleased I was able to spend that time with my sister.

I promised the organisers to return again at the next event in 2009, and that my Mandarin will not be just translated Cantonese. My mind is still spinning at the contortions I imposed upon it - four languages in two weeks!

Japan was my first WorldCon of course so I was quickly dubbed the Neo and taken under the wing by several regular Con goers. The Aussie/Kiwi mafia was in evidence as we quickly spotted each other's southern accents - much beer ensued. The world being a small place we also worked out that we had several associates in common... mainly broadcast geeks in Sydney. On my return to Hong Kong I found another mutual friend I'd forgotten to mention.

Then to top it off, a Japanese architect I know in Nara/Osaka worked on Sakyo Komatsu's house some 30 years ago. The guest of honor is a well known author in Japan but that connection surprised me all over again. I joked that the world is a small place but that Osaka is a big slope - 大阪.

The last surprise was to learn that my Chinese name - 艾特威 - which is a close sound-alike approximation in Cantonese and Mandarin to my surname and partly to my first name - means in Japanese 'Good Writer'. That has got to bode well for a career as an author.

More details in another post.

Nancy Kress and Robert Sawyer attending an author introduction
and discussion at the Bookworm Cafe in Chengdu. At the back right
is Xia Jia, an up and coming SF writer and actress.


Robert Sawyer and Neil Gaiman at the same event.

I arrived in Xian expecting to have an hour to wait until the Brin's arrived but almost fell over when I saw a sign with my name on it. They had taken an earlier flight and their guide met me at the airport.

I'd not met David Brin before but it didn't feel like that at all as I joined the family in a quick tour of sights along the route into town. A musty excursion underground to a Han tomb filled. Another little emperor who thought he could take it all with him but he could only afford a miniture terracotta army. Walking over a glass floor and peering into the gloom they looked as much like fallen bowling pins as an army of the dead. Remarkably they found the bones of a rhino amongst the sculptures, and full sized models of horses drawing elegantly carved chariots. There did not seem to be a consistency in their theory of the dead - perhaps they were covering all possibilities.

After a simple buffet lunch we climbed a 10 tier pagoda just because it was there - the view from the top of the modern city had little to remark upon. In the evening we attended a dinner banquet with a Tang dynasty show. This is something I'd not have considered for myself but it was a great experience. The backdrops of stage settings took us on a spin through scenes from around China. As the seasons changed different maidens danced and sang bringing to life a fresco, their long sleeves flowing around forming almost floral patterns of colour that last a moment before sweeping into a new form.

I have photos of most of the acts and it was quite varied. THe favourite amongst the kids seemed to be the comic sounds produced by a horn blower, thought it seems he did not need a horn to make the burbles and twittering - the horn just amplified the sounds.

We've still to see the full terracotta warrier exhibition and my train tickets are not booked yet. Let's see how that goes.

A week and a day to go until heading off to Xian and an uncertain train journey.

I'm meeting with my sister tomorrow evening who is returning from New Zealand on the way to Japan. I'm looking forward to spending a few hours with her in Hong Kong, but we'll catch up again in Japan as well.

I've been polishing up the synopsis for Falling so she and I can discuss it, and it is coming together well. I'm always amazed at how the story and characters come to life and take control of the situation crafting their own stories. I'm more of a wrangler trying to fit these actors into a freeform play, lasooing them and draging them back on course, setting them colliding against one another to see what will result from their interaction - always interesting and surprising... and I hope compelling reading.

I'm surprised about how messed up Gedye is. Originally my hero, the other characters have been beating him up and dragging him down. Ultimately he is a sympathetic character, but he grows in strength as the final act develops.

I've not painted him yet either as I seem to have more affinity with the women in the story - I've painted them first. I think that I'll want to work on some of the environments next. The main focus has to remain the novel, the painting is more of a distraction or a hobby. But it certainly is a great way to relax and to see the characters come to life in living colour.

I'll post some recent paintings here later in the week, and make one of them the mast head for August/September.

So why *futurewriter?

It is something of a play on words. As I'm not a published author, though I have had some work published in a small Hong Kong magazine, I can not really call myself a writer. That is something for the future.

So *futurewriter is a description of where I'd like to be... in the future.

And when I am first published it will be in the SF genre. Strictly speaking Falling is not necessarily in the future, that's not really made clear in the novel; it may be an alternity, or on a separate planet, but certainly it is not recognisably a future we would recognise as such.

Still a future writer is an adequate description of what I will be writing about as well - the future.

Lastly the sense of period that I am creating in my novel Falling has something of a retro future historical feel to it, and in the design of this blog and the name I am trying to evoke something of this retro future. I hope the name has an antiquated feel to it as well.

Good enough?

I've been meaning to create a blog to track my progress working on my novel, Falling, and some of the inspiration and struggles I've had creating it.

I also thought it timely to get this blog up in time for the WorldCon in Yokohama, now a month or so away.

It's all getting pretty exciting.

Getting tickets together for joining the SF tour of China as well as Japan is almost complete, I have one last ticket that I need to get, and it is proving difficult. The train from Xian to Chengdu that the SF tour will join is K385/388 originating in Shangyang. This makes it difficult to book from Hong Kong. In fact I can't. Nor does it appear that the tour organiser can get this arranged for me from the US.

So I'm going to have to phone to Xian direct to see if we can talk to someone there who can make a reservation for me... even if it is the staff of the Sofitel Hotel which we will be staying at.

If I can't join the train then I'm in a pickle - I'll have to fly from Xian to Chengdu. This is frustrating as the point of going to Xian in the first place. Still there is still hope. More work tomorrow.

The blog design itself is in a state of flux, I think that I'll have to do a quick hack to make it look acceptable at first and then work on making it spiffy. The intention is to post images from the novel on the page so that as work proceeds and paintings are made the blog reflects the state of play. Should be a fun ride and I'm looking forward to sharing some of the ideas and characters in the novel as I get it near to completion.