Janet Gogerty's Blog: Sandscript - Posts Tagged "science-fiction"
Sandscript
They are the 'raison d'etre' for sports people, but are competitions right for musicians, artists, writers? If you don't win you are comforted by the thought that judging can only be subjective. But if you do win or are placed, you have confirmation that at least one complete stranger, who knows nothing about you, likes, even loves your painting or novel. Away from the world of the famous, big money novel awards, many short story competitions are held, with writers hoping for a big break or at least some handy pocket money.
Lat year the phone rang on a particularly noisy day in our house and when the telephone was finally handed to me I thought the woman on the other end said 'You have been shortlisted for the World Literary Competition and we are inviting you to the reception at the Bishops Palace.'
I did not recall entering such a prestigious competition, but had visions of meeting the Archbishop of Canterbury at Lambeth Palace. Actually it was the Wells (Somerset) Literary Competition and Wells is a very nice place for an outing, but unfortunately we would be on our way back from Scotland that day. I didn't win.
This month was the reception for Christchurch (Dorset) Writers' Competition, a pleasant afternoon with readings from the stage and interesting talks by the judges. I came second in the short story section and when I went up to receive my prize the female judge was surprised I was a woman! For a moment I did wonder if I should be using only my initials for my books, maybe selling more! My story 'Experiment' could be called science fiction. You can read it in my new anthology 'Hallows and Heretics' published last week on Amazon Kindle. Read more about it at my website www.ccsidewriter.co.uk
Lat year the phone rang on a particularly noisy day in our house and when the telephone was finally handed to me I thought the woman on the other end said 'You have been shortlisted for the World Literary Competition and we are inviting you to the reception at the Bishops Palace.'
I did not recall entering such a prestigious competition, but had visions of meeting the Archbishop of Canterbury at Lambeth Palace. Actually it was the Wells (Somerset) Literary Competition and Wells is a very nice place for an outing, but unfortunately we would be on our way back from Scotland that day. I didn't win.
This month was the reception for Christchurch (Dorset) Writers' Competition, a pleasant afternoon with readings from the stage and interesting talks by the judges. I came second in the short story section and when I went up to receive my prize the female judge was surprised I was a woman! For a moment I did wonder if I should be using only my initials for my books, maybe selling more! My story 'Experiment' could be called science fiction. You can read it in my new anthology 'Hallows and Heretics' published last week on Amazon Kindle. Read more about it at my website www.ccsidewriter.co.uk
Sandscript on Perfection
On the 7th August somebody I had never heard of died. Dr. Francis Oldham Kelsey was the pharmacologist whose courage and determination ensured the drug thalidomide never obtained approval in the US. Who knows how many American women endured the misery of chronic morning sickness, but were spared giving birth to deformed babies?
Everyone wants a ‘perfect’ baby and with modern scans most parents are reassured their babies have arms, legs and sound hearts. Imagine the shock to thalidomide mothers in Britain and other countries who gave birth, in the worse case scenarios, to babies with no limbs. Listening to BBC Radio Four it was heartbreaking to hear how it really was; some babies left to die, all parents left in a state of shock, with no understanding of why it had happened. There were tales of cafes and playgrounds emptying when parents appeared with a deformed child. The drug was withdrawn in 1961, but compensation had to be fought for.
Nature brings its own shocks, but we now have more understanding of handicaps and deformities. On any channel on any evening you will probably find a programme about a boy with giant hands or a girl with two heads… while in previous generations people who were very different were put out of sight in ‘homes’ or could only earn a living as circus freaks.
Abigail Loraine "Abby" Hensel and Brittany Lee Hensel (born March 7, 1990) are conjoined twins, each of whom has a separate head, but whose bodies are joined, giving the appearance of having just a single body, though each twin has a separate heart, stomach, spine, and spinal cord. Many of us have seen them on television. The parents could have hidden them away, to expose them risked making them a freak show, but at least people who have never met them can understand that they are still human, two individual humans. We presume their home town has grown up accepting them as normal. Of course, however many programmes we watch, however sympathetic we feel, it would still be a shock to suddenly meet someone with two heads. We would curl up with embarrassment at baby swimming class if a two headed infant appeared without warning and parents are inevitably wrapped in confusion when their children exclaim in loud voices ‘Why has that man got a strange face?’
Science seeks to help create healthy babies, perhaps perfect infants who would become perfect adults. The various breakthroughs cause regular surges of hope and controversy. Even if it could be done, who would decide on the definition of perfect?
In my novel ‘Brief Encounters of the Third Kind’ Susan Dexter gives birth to a baby who appears to be perfect, but why is the mother so terrified?
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Brief-Encount...
Everyone wants a ‘perfect’ baby and with modern scans most parents are reassured their babies have arms, legs and sound hearts. Imagine the shock to thalidomide mothers in Britain and other countries who gave birth, in the worse case scenarios, to babies with no limbs. Listening to BBC Radio Four it was heartbreaking to hear how it really was; some babies left to die, all parents left in a state of shock, with no understanding of why it had happened. There were tales of cafes and playgrounds emptying when parents appeared with a deformed child. The drug was withdrawn in 1961, but compensation had to be fought for.
Nature brings its own shocks, but we now have more understanding of handicaps and deformities. On any channel on any evening you will probably find a programme about a boy with giant hands or a girl with two heads… while in previous generations people who were very different were put out of sight in ‘homes’ or could only earn a living as circus freaks.
Abigail Loraine "Abby" Hensel and Brittany Lee Hensel (born March 7, 1990) are conjoined twins, each of whom has a separate head, but whose bodies are joined, giving the appearance of having just a single body, though each twin has a separate heart, stomach, spine, and spinal cord. Many of us have seen them on television. The parents could have hidden them away, to expose them risked making them a freak show, but at least people who have never met them can understand that they are still human, two individual humans. We presume their home town has grown up accepting them as normal. Of course, however many programmes we watch, however sympathetic we feel, it would still be a shock to suddenly meet someone with two heads. We would curl up with embarrassment at baby swimming class if a two headed infant appeared without warning and parents are inevitably wrapped in confusion when their children exclaim in loud voices ‘Why has that man got a strange face?’
Science seeks to help create healthy babies, perhaps perfect infants who would become perfect adults. The various breakthroughs cause regular surges of hope and controversy. Even if it could be done, who would decide on the definition of perfect?
In my novel ‘Brief Encounters of the Third Kind’ Susan Dexter gives birth to a baby who appears to be perfect, but why is the mother so terrified?
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Brief-Encount...
Sandscript in the Future
This week we all arrived in the future, 21st October 2015, as imagined in the 'Back to The Future' films. We are not all riding on hoverboards and experts discussed what they got right and wrong. A form of ‘Skype’ existed, but the internet was missed completely.
This is not the first time most of us have lived to see the future, there was 1984; George Orwell’s Big Brother has surely been watching us for a long time.
'Things to Come' is claimed to be the first classic science fiction film, a 1936 British black-and-white film from United Artists, produced by Alexander Korda and written by H.G. Wells. Coming very close to the truth, World War Two begins in 1940 with aerial bombing, but continues into the 1960’s. The people of the world have forgotten why they are fighting, Humanity enters a new Dark Age. The world is in ruins and there is little technology left. I have never seen the film, but the U tube clip of the trailer is fascinating.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atwfW...
Most of us are probably more familiar with Sir Arthur Bliss’ rousing score.
The film looks as far as our future, by 2036 humans are living in underground cities, there is a planned flight to the moon…
Writers and film makers can look into the future and if it’s not too far ahead we will find out if they were right. Scientists claim time travel is impossible and certainly not to the past, citing as proof that nobody has ever visited us from the future. But how can we be sure? Human beings do not change over centuries, so we could pass them unaware in the street.
In ‘Three Ages of Man’ the stranger is sent on a journey he would have never believed possible, but as a scientist says to him ‘Just because something is impossible doesn’t mean it can’t happen.’ Read the novel and wonder who the people you meet in the street really are!
www.amazon.co.uk/Three-Ages-Brief-Enc...
This is not the first time most of us have lived to see the future, there was 1984; George Orwell’s Big Brother has surely been watching us for a long time.
'Things to Come' is claimed to be the first classic science fiction film, a 1936 British black-and-white film from United Artists, produced by Alexander Korda and written by H.G. Wells. Coming very close to the truth, World War Two begins in 1940 with aerial bombing, but continues into the 1960’s. The people of the world have forgotten why they are fighting, Humanity enters a new Dark Age. The world is in ruins and there is little technology left. I have never seen the film, but the U tube clip of the trailer is fascinating.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atwfW...
Most of us are probably more familiar with Sir Arthur Bliss’ rousing score.
The film looks as far as our future, by 2036 humans are living in underground cities, there is a planned flight to the moon…
Writers and film makers can look into the future and if it’s not too far ahead we will find out if they were right. Scientists claim time travel is impossible and certainly not to the past, citing as proof that nobody has ever visited us from the future. But how can we be sure? Human beings do not change over centuries, so we could pass them unaware in the street.
In ‘Three Ages of Man’ the stranger is sent on a journey he would have never believed possible, but as a scientist says to him ‘Just because something is impossible doesn’t mean it can’t happen.’ Read the novel and wonder who the people you meet in the street really are!
www.amazon.co.uk/Three-Ages-Brief-Enc...
Sandscript in Short
How long is a short story, how short is flash fiction. How many words must you pen to claim you have written a novel? A story should be as long as it takes to tell a good tale. A couple of years ago I was short listed for the Magic Oxygen 6-word story contest, I didn’t win the £100 pound prize; but how ironic it would have been to win so much for so few words. I enjoyed the challenge and tried to think how six words could encompass the whole universe. My entry was ‘I am starting again said God.’
But most of us want to read and write about every day life, the smaller pictures of human life, not the unknowable frightening vastness of the universe. Indie Authors can write however many words they like, with no publisher to insist on condensing or stretching the word count. Still there is plenty of scope for debate. Flash fiction can be as short as six words and perhaps as long as 1,000 words; whatever the length it should still tell a story or bring a surprise at the end.
Short stories are fun to write and handy for reading in your coffee break. Competitions are popular, especially with the chance to have your story featured in an anthology, but vary widely in minimum and maximum word count.
Until this year I had only written short stories and long novels, but two stories were evolving; a consensus of opinion from other writers was that a novella was between 20,000 and 30,000 words and without planning my novellas evolved to around 27,000.
‘Someone For The Weekend’ finds Selina Harris’ son bringing a very strange guest for the weekend.
‘Durlswood’ is set on a pleasant summer solstice weekend at a country estate; strange events bring two very different young people together, the other main character is a beautiful horse.
The two novellas are featured in ‘Someone Somewhere’ and this new collection is rounded off with four short stories and two chapters of flash fiction. Enjoy topical stories about ordinary people, who often find themselves in strange situations.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Someone-Some...
Read more about Someone Somewhere and my other collections at my website.
https://www.ccsidewriter.co.uk/chapte...
But most of us want to read and write about every day life, the smaller pictures of human life, not the unknowable frightening vastness of the universe. Indie Authors can write however many words they like, with no publisher to insist on condensing or stretching the word count. Still there is plenty of scope for debate. Flash fiction can be as short as six words and perhaps as long as 1,000 words; whatever the length it should still tell a story or bring a surprise at the end.
Short stories are fun to write and handy for reading in your coffee break. Competitions are popular, especially with the chance to have your story featured in an anthology, but vary widely in minimum and maximum word count.
Until this year I had only written short stories and long novels, but two stories were evolving; a consensus of opinion from other writers was that a novella was between 20,000 and 30,000 words and without planning my novellas evolved to around 27,000.
‘Someone For The Weekend’ finds Selina Harris’ son bringing a very strange guest for the weekend.
‘Durlswood’ is set on a pleasant summer solstice weekend at a country estate; strange events bring two very different young people together, the other main character is a beautiful horse.
The two novellas are featured in ‘Someone Somewhere’ and this new collection is rounded off with four short stories and two chapters of flash fiction. Enjoy topical stories about ordinary people, who often find themselves in strange situations.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Someone-Some...
Read more about Someone Somewhere and my other collections at my website.
https://www.ccsidewriter.co.uk/chapte...
Sandscript Meets A Stranger
Many stories start with strangers, characters who are new in town or perhaps locals who start acting strangely. Even if we enjoy a gentle story where nothing much happens there is bound to be a stranger lurking somewhere for locals to gossip about.
Mr. Bingley arrives in Jane Austen's 'Pride and Prejudice' and there would be no story without him for he also brings his friend Mr. Darcy, another stranger.
In Charles' Dickens 'Great Expectations' young Pip meets a stranger far more fearsome, Magwitch lurking in the dark among the gravestones, an escaped convict.
Sometimes even authors are surprised by strangers walking into their novels. When I was writing ‘Brief Encounters of the Third Kind’ a nameless policeman featured briefly in one scene, then he appeared again, in a following scene I gave him a name. After some chapters he had become an important part of the plot. By the end of the novel he was demanding to tell his own story.
A man wakes up on a London park bench wearing another man's clothes and another man's watch. As he finds his bearings he realises the impossible has happened.
This is the preparallequel to 'Brief Encounters of the Third Kind' and second of the trilogy.
In the early years of the Twenty First Century a stranger arrives in Ashley. Only he knows the truth about what will happen to beautiful musician Emma Dexter in seven months time, but will he be able to save her and the others caught up in events that defy explanation?
Julie Welsh is a busy mother with plenty of problems and her life is about to get far more complicated when she stops to help a stranger.
‘Three Ages of Man’ can also be read as a stand alone novel and is now available as a paperback.
https://www.amazon.com/Three-Ages-Bri...
If you want to start reading the trilogy ‘Brief Encounters of the Third Kind’ can be downloaded for just $1.33.
https://www.amazon.com/Brief-Encounte...
Mr. Bingley arrives in Jane Austen's 'Pride and Prejudice' and there would be no story without him for he also brings his friend Mr. Darcy, another stranger.
In Charles' Dickens 'Great Expectations' young Pip meets a stranger far more fearsome, Magwitch lurking in the dark among the gravestones, an escaped convict.
Sometimes even authors are surprised by strangers walking into their novels. When I was writing ‘Brief Encounters of the Third Kind’ a nameless policeman featured briefly in one scene, then he appeared again, in a following scene I gave him a name. After some chapters he had become an important part of the plot. By the end of the novel he was demanding to tell his own story.
A man wakes up on a London park bench wearing another man's clothes and another man's watch. As he finds his bearings he realises the impossible has happened.
This is the preparallequel to 'Brief Encounters of the Third Kind' and second of the trilogy.
In the early years of the Twenty First Century a stranger arrives in Ashley. Only he knows the truth about what will happen to beautiful musician Emma Dexter in seven months time, but will he be able to save her and the others caught up in events that defy explanation?
Julie Welsh is a busy mother with plenty of problems and her life is about to get far more complicated when she stops to help a stranger.
‘Three Ages of Man’ can also be read as a stand alone novel and is now available as a paperback.
https://www.amazon.com/Three-Ages-Bri...
If you want to start reading the trilogy ‘Brief Encounters of the Third Kind’ can be downloaded for just $1.33.
https://www.amazon.com/Brief-Encounte...
Sandscript
I like to write first drafts with pen and paper; at home, in busy cafes, in the garden, at our beach hut... even sitting in a sea front car park waiting for the rain to stop I get my note book out. We
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