U2 – One Thousand And One Parsecs

Change of plans

So I was going to start Edenfall this week…but then, I realized I wanted to spend some more time in the universe of Worlds Away from Home, so I decided to work on Into the Nebulous Deep instead.

ITND is a direct sequel to Mercenary Savior. Basically, it grew out of the realization that James’s story wasn’t anywhere near finished. Like WAFH, I’m trying to throw in some romantic elements…how well that works out remains to be seen. I’ll probably get it all wrong on the first draft, but make it shine in subsequent drafts.

Anyhow, here’s the soundtrack I’ve put together. Most of the songs are from ocremix, but there’s also a good bit of U2 and a little Daft Punk, as well as a couple chiptunes that probably no one’s heard of. Man, I love chiptunes.

I’m going to try to write through this rough draft as quickly as possible. Right now, I’ve got a deadline for April 16th, but I wonder if I can finish before that.

Part of that has to do with my new goal of two novels per year; I want to train myself to write quickly, so I can be putting out more work. More than that, though, I want to try and tap into my creativity in a deeper way. If I can train myself to write quickly, I’ll be less prone to self-edit, which hopefully will help the creative part of my mind to flourish more freely. That was certainly the case with WAFH 2.1, and I want to do it again.

I stopped ITND 1.0 back in December in order to work on Bringing Stella Home; not because it wasn’t working, but because BSH needed a little more work. After that, I ended up picking up WAFH. Now, it’s time to go back and finish this project.

Christmas break 2009

Christmas was great this year! I spent it in Texas, with my extended family–the family on my dad’s side, who I almost never see. The break has been a lot of fun so far! No school or work obligations, lots of time to lay back and relax, plenty of games to play and books to read, plus fun people to hang out with–it’s been great!

Most of my cousins are young teenagers right now, and are a lot different than I remember. However, I was able to get some presents for them that I think worked out well. David is into his iPod, so I got him some U2 albums (How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb and Joshua Tree). Savannah and Nash are both avid fantasy readers, so I got Savannah Mistborn: The Final Empire and Nash Victory of Eagles (the one chain bookstore in Midland didn’t have His Majesty’s Dragon, so I got him another from the series). Daniel, I didn’t know what to get, so I gave him my old camera.

Ashley (who is older) was telling me about how she lived abroad and wants to spend some time in Australia, so I got a travelogue on Australia by the same guy who did A Walk in the Woods. Based on her reaction, I think she’s going to like it!

It was much easier to get stuff for direct family, since I know them better. For Kate, I got Soulless, a steampunk / paranormal mystery novel that had an awesome release party at World Fantasy 2009. I don’t know if she’ll like the book, but the party was very steampunk / regency fantasy with the cosplayers, so I think she will. I got Danny The Screwtape Letters, since I know he likes that kind of religious fiction–turns out he’s been meaning to read it for a while! Mykle, I got the first book in C. S. Friedman’s latest series, since I know that she’s his favorite author–24 hours after Christmas, he’s already 200+ pages into it! And for Sarah and Mykle, I got them both $20 gift certificates to Pioneer Book in downtown Provo. They were very happy with that!

I wish I’d had the time to get presents for everyone in the family, but with moving out, coming here so quickly, and not having a car (or much of an idea what they wanted), it just wasn’t very practical. I did get my mom a gift certificate to B&N, but I haven’t gotten anything for my dad yet. I will, though–he wants stuff from our Christmas memories, and I happen to have all my old childhood journals in my carry on luggage. Lots of Christmas memories in those!

I’m satisfied with what I got, even though it wasn’t all that much. Besides the generic clothes, socks, ties, candy, popcorn, and other stuff, I got a spiffy tool kit from Robin and a flexible tripod from pop. Very nice! They will add some weight to my luggage, but I think I can give some of it to mom or pop to bring home.

As far as writing goes, I’m less than 13k words from the end of Bringing Stella Home 2.0. It’s not quite ready for alpha readers yet, but I want to get it ready soon (it’s going to take so much work! <sob>). If I average 2.6k words over the next five days, I’ll have it finished in time to start something new by new years!

That’s the goal. As for what the next novel is going to be about…let’s just say it’s Homer’s Odyssey meets C. J. Cherryh and Ursula K. Le Guin in space, where Telemachus is a girl and the story is primarily from her point of view.

I hope I can pull it off!

“You do watcha gotta do for Rock ‘n Roll, ya know?”

Check this out. Apparently, back in the 80s, U2 randomly decided to put on a show on the roof of a liquor store in the middle of LA. A free show. They played one of their best songs, “Where the streets have no name,” and then the police shut them down. This video is apparently footage from that incident.

How awesome is that, dude?

I mean, aside from all the stress they gave the cops, and the crowd difficulties and dangers inherent in pulling a stunt like this, just how freaking awesome is the concept? Dude, I would have LOVED to have been there! Check out the people, standing around, waving their hands, hanging off of traffic lights pumping their arms–it must have been awesome!

U2 is one of my favorite bands of all time. I know people think Bono is way arrogant and self-righteous, that he projects himself as the Pope of Rock ‘n Roll, but honestly, come on, the music is pretty good. I mean, lets not get so caught up in everything that we forget the music. Classic. Truly classic.

And then, when you DO look at some of the stuff these guys have done, it’s pretty freaking impressive, Pope or no Pope. In Chile in the 90s, U2 put on a HUGE benefit concert for the Mothers of the Disappeared, a human rights group calling for an inquiry and public closure on Pinochet’s brutal regime…right under Pinochet’s nose! Right there, Bono called out one of the world’s totalitarian dictators IN HIS OWN COUNTRY. How awesome is that??

And it’s not like Bono is just posing for the camera, throwing concerts to boost his fame and fortune, doing all the showy stuff for human rights but not actually doing the leg work. He puts on his suit, picks up the briefcase, and meets with the major leaders in the non-governmental organizations and trans-national activist networks and works with these guys, behind the scenes. He’s really out there, doing his part.

Plus, just look how long the band has stuck together–thirty years now. How many bands have you seen that fall apart after a year or two, just because the members get all pissy and immature with each other? These guys in U2 aren’t like that–they can work together, they can do much more than just get along with each other. They can really thrive together and build off of each other.

When I was in Jordan, I listened to U2 all the time, especially their older stuff. Their music and message was born out of the conflict in Northern Ireland, and because of that it really resonated me as I lived around some of the effects of the Arab-Israeli conflict. They have a way of singing about love and peace in a gritty, hard-edged way that can still really cut right to the heart of how you feel and how you want things to be. That’s how I feel, at least, and for that reason I listened to U2 just about every day in Jordan.

Man, U2 has got to be one of my favorite bands of all time. These guys really know how to rock out, in the best possible sense of the word.