1 – Work and travel:
1.1 – Keep working on cruise ships, though structuring the my time away better than last year to maximize time in Berlin/with friends/doing my own thing.
1.2 – I already know I’ll be visiting, on various cruises, Papua New Guinea, New Zealand, India, and Dubai for the first time, along with a few other places. I may be going to Antarctica again too.
1.3 – On top of work travel, spend some frequent flier points and travel home from various gigs independently. In this way I hope to spend a week in New Zealand, and a week in Japan.
1.4 – Release my International Juggler 2009 video, the one I’ve been working on for the last year, which features me juggling in every country/place I visited.
1.5 – Shoot, edit, and release International Juggler 2010, a similar video as above, of all the places I visit in 2010. I have some ideas about how to make this different/better than the 2009 video, but I don’t need to think about that too much for the next few weeks.
1.6 – Go to Poland. I live really close, but have never been. What’s up with that?
1.7 – Go to the Berlin, British, and European juggling conventions. And a convention in September/October too. Maybe the Turkish again, maybe another.
1.8 – Spend four to six weeks in New York. I’ve visited the city for a few weeks, but I want to get to know the city better. I hear so many people from there talk about it, and I want to experience it all first hand.
1.9 – Maybe, if I can sort the dates right, I might go to DragonCon, to nerd out with the scifi and podcasting geeks.

2 – Juggling:
2.1 – Keep improving my solo shows and performing skills.
2.2 – Work on my Room show project, a juggling theater show. I plan to have all the set building work complete by March, and 20-30 minutes complete by May.
2.3 – Perform a short version of the Room Show at the Berlin Juggling Convention in June.
2.4 – Have an hour show finished by October, and put on a series of shows in my own home for invited audiences.
2.5 – Finish other juggling routines I’m working on at the moment.
2.6 – Run the British Young Juggler of the Year show for the sixth year. Also do a series of online workshops for those taking part, in attempt to raise the quality of the acts. Nobody has won a Gold Award yet!
2.7 – I’m in charge of the Open Stages at the EJC in Finland. That means seven or eight nights of zero stress and easy work as my superior organization skills result in everything running smoothly, and every night’s show rocking. Or so I hope.
2.8 – Generally rock out playing combat.
2.9 – Beat Jochen in the final of a Fight Night 3 Club Combat tournament. I’ve won a tournament we both entered before, but I wasn’t the one to knock him out.
2.10 – Release some more Juggling Podcasts.
2.11 – Release some interesting juggling videos on YouTube (I have a few good ideas).
2.12 – Juggle 9 clubs for 19 passes each with Pola.
2.13 – Also, depending other work commitments, I might enter Britain’s Got Talent. If I do have the time, the final decider will be the question “Will this cause me any stress at all?” At the moment I have very little stress in my life, by design, so I might as well keep it that way.

3 – Writing:
3.1 – Keep writing for this blog.
3.2 – Finish editing and release (and decide on final titles for) on my two works-in-progress novels: Combat Story and Monster Story. Completion dates: January and March.
3.3 – Have another run at Human Danger (working title), the novel I began but didn’t complete in 2009. I have a feeling this will be a longer-term project than just this year though.
3.4 – Research, outline, and write another novel I’m giving the working title “Arc of Life.” It’ll be a fantasy novel set in a world of strange creatures and magic. My fiction writing style at the moment is very much a “just get on with the plot” kind of thing, which means a lot is packed into a very small package. This works well for near-future science fiction thrillers. Writing fantasy set in a strange new world with a completely different history and landscape than our own will hopefully force me to concentrate more on descriptive scene-setting writing, rather than character, dialogue, and action.
3.5 – Start work on the final novel in the Minding Tomorrow world.
3.6 – Do an audio recording of one of my novels. As long as I keep my novels short, this could be a good way to get more readers/listeners. I’d need to buy a new microphone though.

4 – Podcasting:
4.1 – Keep reading science fiction novels and reviewing them for the Science Fiction Book Review Podcast. I also plan to review any fantasy novels I read.
4.2 – Be a guest on other podcasts. I know I’ll be back on the SFFaudio podcast at some point.
4.3 – Doing some more Juggling Podcasts. I really miss the interviews I did with other jugglers.
4.4 – I’m thinking of starting a new podcast about traveling. I enjoy posting photos here on the blog, but I see and do lots of things that I never write about here. For example, I have a lot to say about a place like Punta Arenas, but it’s not the kind of thing that would work as a blog post. I’m thinking of doing a trip-by-trip podcast, or just saving up enough observations and stories and experiences to fill 45 minutes, and releasing it whenever.
4.5 – If I’m going to do this, I’m going to buy a portable mp3 recorder with a mic attachment, so I can record easily while hiking across a city or up a hill.
4.6 – Thinking about that last point, what I should actually do is see if my iPhone would work just as well, as then I need to carry one less gadget.

5 – Photography:
5.1 – I have no plans for my photography. It’s the only hobby I have which has no performance aspect at all (I even podcast about my reading), so there is no pressure to do anything at all. I’ll just keep carrying my camera, and keep improving my skills and artistry.
5.2 – But I will try to keep posting photos to my blog.
5.3 – And I’m going to buy a new zoom lens, because the autofocus on my current (really shitty) zoom lens is broken.
5.4 – And I’ll probably buy another two or three camera bags.

6 – Music:
6.1 – Write an album’s-worth of new songs and record them by the end of the year.
6.2 – Write the music for Room.
6.3 – Buy a five string bass guitar and learn to rock.

7 – Other goals:
7.1 – Get better at speaking German. I plan to hire a personal tutor, as regular classes don’t work with my schedule.
7.2 – Try to spend a few hours a week in the gym whenever I’m on a cruise ship. I spend way more time than that in the bars, and in the jacuzzis, and eating, and other unhealthy things. A few hours in the gym will help me keep my fitness levels up.
7.3 – Spend more time with friends.
7.4 – Make new friends.
7.5 – Have sex.
7.6 – Maybe buy a new laptop. This macbook has served me well for almost two years, but I’m doing more and more music and video and photo editing, and it’s struggling a bit. I think I’ll buy a full spec 13″ MacBook Pro, and upgrade to a solid state hard drive for super quick load times.

8 – Consumption of entertainment:
8.1 – Catch up with Dexter.
8.2 – Watch more than the first episode of Battlestar Galactica. I’ve had the season 1 box set in my cabin(s) for the past eight weeks, and haven’t watched a single episode.
8.3 – Play more Natural Selection and, if it is ever released, Natural Selection 2. I might need more memory for my PC though.

I think that’s about it! The most important things to me out of all these are continued success with my job and the Room show. Unfortunately these two are at odds, as one requires me to travel, and the other requires me to be in Berlin.

Or maybe, looking at it glass full, the two goals create a balance, so when I’m not doing one, I should be working on the other.

Or maybe, if I work hard enough, the Room show can become my job by the end of the year, and then I don’t have to worry. So, if I have nothing to show for the Room project by April, you have permission to slap me hard.

And so, after making a list of all I’ve accomplished in 2009, and seeing how long it is, I’m very proud of my productivity for the year.

In the Win Column.

Work and travel:
- Got a lot better at performing. I got some really good compliments from people who saw me perform my show on a cruise ship back in 2007, and now again in 2009, and they said I’d really improved. This makes me feel good.
- Earned more money than I’ve been able to spend.
- Visited about 45 countries and territories, including many countries I’ve never visited before 2009. For example, I’d never visited Africa before 2009, and now I’ve been to Tanzania, Kenya, Morocco, and Egypt.
- Had really good summer trip to France, Spain, and Portugal.
- Did some good shows at street show festivals in Germany and Austria.
- Made an awesome video of me juggling in all the above countries, a video I’ll be releasing in January. I’ll release this very soon.
- Attended TAMLondon.
- And of course, while it isn’t a “productivity” or “accomplishment” thing, I’ve met loads of people along the way and made many new friends.

Juggling:
- Playing lots of combat.
- Did no performing or hosting at the Berlin convention. This was the plan, and I managed it for the first time in five years.
- Organized the British Young Juggler of the Year competition for the fifth year in the row.
- Hosted a good show at the EJC.
- After wanting to go for the past three years, I finally got to the Sundance Turkish Juggling Festival. I performed my full show, exactly the same as I normally do it for non-jugglers, and it went down really well. This means a lot to me, as I never want to make juggling acts for anyone else but me, and if I enjoy it, I think both juggling and non-juggling audiences should like it too.
- Created four new juggling routines and acts. Most importantly, these acts use juggling equipment I already carry in my case. This means I’m progressively taking less equipment for more minutes of material.
- Released loads of videos on YouTube, including magnet juggling, air bounces, squeeze catches, act videos, and more. Also I released a few 10 minute workshop videos about juggling.

Writing:
- Started yet another blog, and kept posting without many breaks.
- Released my first novel “Minding Tomorrow” online for free, as an eBook. I got loads of great feedback about it.
- Completed two other novels, though I’m still editing both of them. I should release them both over the next few months.
- Started writing a third novel, and while I didn’t complete it, I did learn a lot.
- Wrote a load of articles and workshops for the Kaskade magazine.
- After a year of reading, thinking, and studying, wrote my first Higher Biblical Criticism essay.

Reading and podcasting:
- Read about 40 novels.
- Reviewed all but one or two of those novels for the Science Fiction Book Review Podcast.
- Joined other podcasts as a guest, including the Friday Night Party Line, The Sofanauts, and SFFaudio. This is always a lot of fun, and I’d like to do more in the future.

Photography:
- This has become much more of a hobby for me in the past year, and I’m becoming more and more impressed with the images I’m capturing.
- I kept a photo blog at the EJC and the Turkish Juggling Festival, both of which I really enjoyed.
- I’ve had quite a few images picked for the sosauce.com photo of the day.

Music:
- Wrote six or seven songs.
- Recorded four music tracks.
- Bought a new guitar.
- Performed my very first solo singing and guitar playing set.

In the Fail Column.

- Back injury put me out of action for two months at the start of the year.
- Getting dumped by my girlfriend in August.
- Only having gay men hit on me since I’ve been single.
- Spending too much time away from Berlin, which means I don’t see as much of my friends as I’d like, and the projects I work on at home suffer.
- Not improving much with my German speaking skills, even though I can carry off simple conversations.
- Not progressing very far with my Room Project, a new juggling theater show that has been in the works for two years now.
- Not winning the Fight Night 3 Club Combat Tournaments at either the Berlin or European juggling conventions. I lost to Jochen in the final both times.
- After winning the 3 club combat in the official EJC games in 2008, I only came third in 2009. Come to think of it, I might have won the BJC games combat, but can’t remember.
- New Years Resolution: learning to touch type. I didn’t do this. I find the hand position on my laptop too difficult, as I end up resting them on the mouse pad. And also there’s this really hot spot under the heel of my left hand…

Also, left over from mine and Pola’s “10 Personal Juggling Goals for 2009″ list that we did in the end of 2008 Juggling Podcast, here are some that we failed:
- 9 clubs, 18 passes each.
- Motion tracking routines. I worked on this a bit, but the return on investment probably isn’t very high.
- Host shows together.
- Perform on cruise ships together.
- More Juggling Podcasts.

Meanwhile, in 2009, I’ve been enjoying:
- The computer game Natural Selection.
- The TV show Dexter.
- Watching Tennis and American Football.
- The following podcasts (in alphabetical order): Astronomy Cast, The Bible Geek, The Bugle, Collings and Herrin, Fighting Talk, Filmspotting, gadget, GeekNights, The Good Atheist, In Our Time, Little Atoms, Mark Kermode and Simon Mayo, More or Less, Norman Centuries, Point of Inquiry, Richard Herring’s As It Occurs to me, Science Fiction and Politics, SFFaudio, The Skeptic’s Guide, Skeptoid, The Sofanauts, This Week in Google, This Week in Photography, and Writing Excuses. I listened to other podcasts, but not every episode, and not regularly.

So that’s my showing for 2009! Tomorrow I’ll post my goals and plans for 2010 and the years ahead.

Although I’m sure I’ll post again before the new year.

My show is isn’t really choreographed that tightly and the tricks I attempt normally depend on the crowd, conditions, and how confident I’m feeling. How did you go about constructing your diabolo act? A list of tricks you know you wanted to get in or just trying to think what would look smooth?

I wrote the following reply (and see the original post for a few more insights):

Hi Marky J,

I was planning on writing up some workshops for those taking part in next year’s BYJOTY show, with a view to improving the standard of acts and awarding the first ever Gold Award. You asking this was a good motivation to get something about diabolo routines out there. Thanks for the inspiration!

Luke B’s Guide to Creating a Diabolo Routine:

The biggest secret in any kind of professional/successful juggling/diabolo routine is noticeable variation. So many routines I’ve seen go at a single pace, with long stretches of tediously similar tricks.

I created my act by doing (very roughly) the following:

- I wrote down a list of TYPES of tricks. Do it yourself; you’ll get something like this…
high throws (with something underneath)
diabolo circling a body part
knots
grinds
suicides
diabolo movement tricks
stupid tricks
vertax
etc.

- Within each category, write down ten tricks you can do simply, ten times in a row, without drops or tangles. If they are tricks you invented yourself, so much the better.

- From each of those ten tricks, discard seven, leaving the three most interesting. They should each be different enough so that when you do all three in a row, an unknowledgeable audience will be able to see three distinct techniques. And yet, as they are the same type, they obviously fit together in a natural way.

- Put the sets of tricks in an interesting order.

*stop* A bit (a lot, actually) about ordering tricks in routines:

- Each prop has an “essence”, a natural state in which it falls.
Clubs do single flips in the air.
Balls travel in simple paths.
Rings fly sideways to the audience.
Diabolos spin and move in a plane.
More importantly, diabolos are NOT tied to the string like yo-yos.
- When beginning a routine, you must first establish this essence with your audience.
Eg: With clubs, don’t start with reverse spins or flat throws.
More pertinent Eg: With a diabolo, make sure you do some THROWS near the start of the routine. Get the damn thing OFF THE STRING!
- Also, dramatic tension is created when an object is airborne, or in a motion that isn’t assured to land perfectly and safely. This is why juggling is intrinsically interesting to watch, and club swinging isn’t (sorry club swingers).
- Work progressively from the “home sate” of a prop to ever more different and extreme states.
- Each new set of skills should introduce a new concept or element. My routine goes like this:
Diabolo not attached to string (throw from hand)
Diabolo can move side to side, up and down, and in circles.
Can leave the string (throws).
Can be bounced on the string up high.
Can do stuff low to the ground too (I even say this when doing a “talky” show).
I can do it standing sideways (ok, not that interesting)
Round a body part (leg is really visible, and I keep this up for the first applause of the act).
Turn in circle.
OH s**t I LET GO OF THE STICK!
Pause for applause.
Cats cradle.
Pirouette
double pirouette.
Stick grind.
Two handed whip catch (used to make a point about having my arms crossed, but audiences didn’t get it, so now I move on quickly).
Pause for applause.
Ok… I can do stupid stuff using my mouth.
String around neck (done kneeling down for added height variation).
Magic knot.
Long setup with a wait… what’s coming next?
Blind behind the back one handed whip catch! On the F**KING MUSIC TOO!

Ok, that was a big trick. And how did it end? With the diabolo STOPPED and MOTIONLESS. This is the first time I’ve REALLY broken away from the essence of the diabolo. This is a VERY clear sign to the audience that they should be clapping around about now, because there is nothing else for them to be doing. The diabolo is no longer the center of attention, there’s only me, on stage, and I’m lapping it up.

Right… now in my talking version of this routine I say “Two more styles of one diabolo to finish” and go on to do:
One handed diabolo (infinite suicide stuff after a setup)
Oh, to make it really clear I’m only using one hand I take off my hat with the spare hand. If people weren’t clapping already, they do when I show them this. Why? It’s not any more difficult… but if you can guess why, you’re already starting to understand performing.
“Drunken style diabolo” (otherwise known as vertex)
Again I end right on the music. Ending a section or the routine on a musical cue is more important than doing any single trick to a musical cue.

*End bit about ordering tricks!*

- So, now you have a loooong list of tricks, maybe 30 or 35. Doing all of them will take maybe five minutes, and you want your first routine to last, at most, 3 minutes.

- Do all the tricks in order. You’ll naturally find some nice transitions between the different skills.

- Don’t make all the transitions TOO smooth. At some points break, let the audience understand that what is coming next is going to be new and different.

- If you drop on a trick more than twice in row, remove it from the routine.

- If a trick is taking too long and you don’t find it different/impressive enough, remove it from the routine.

- Keep removing tricks from the routine until each different style of trick is expressed as clearly and as cleanly as you can possibly show it.

Ok, at this point you’re really starting to get somewhere! Want to go further?

- Find a piece of music that has some clearly audible changes along the way (selecting suitable music is a whole post in itself).

- Play the track on repeat.

- Run through the routine over and over, and you’ll soon find yourself matching the different parts of the music up to the different sections in your routine.

- To make things fit better, swap around the sections, or extend some tricks.

- Whatever you do, make sure you get your first round of applause NO LATER than 45 seconds into the routine, and no earlier than maybe 30 seconds. Do this by repeating a trick until you get them to clap, or stopping (completely stopping, as in; catch the diabolo in your hand) after a trick that looks different from everything that has gone before.

- Make sure the last trick is easy pleasy lemon squeezy. You should already have removed any hard tricks from the routine, but dropping on that last catch is über-embarrassing. By “hard” I mean hard for YOU. They can be the most technically advanced tricks in the world ever to be performed on stage ever (the opposite of my show) but dropping with a one diabolo routine is unforgivable (saying that, I did drop the last time I performed this routine, but had a spare out of my prop case within two seconds).

That’s it for now! Maybe that’s a lot to think about, but I go through a similar process with every juggling routine I make now, and it serves me very well indeed.

There is, of course, a huge amount more I could say about routining, but I’ll save those for future posts.

I had a really good time! The show lounge had the lowest ceiling I’ve ever had to perform under. I have a “low ceiling version” of my show, but I had to cut stuff even further! Also they wanted a second show of 20 minutes, and I’d specifically told my agent “If the ceiling is low, I can do a full 45 minute show, then just 15 more minutes.” But I managed to hit the 20 minute dead on by: A. playing version of my Juggling 2009 video which features me juggling in all the countries I’ve visited this year, and B. dropping the 7 ball run a few times.

Except for the low ceiling above the stages, I really enjoy spending time on smaller cruise ships, those about 600 to 800 passengers. I get to know all the cruise staff, cast members and musicians right away, and within two days I’ve seen all the passengers, and they all recognize me.

This gig was strange because I performed my first show on the day I joined the ship. Unlike Ivan Pecel and Jonathan Root, I really LOVE the passengers telling me how much they enjoyed my show, and pretty much my entire second show is based on people asking me to juggle random objects! Bring it on, I say.

Places visited:

I didn’t see much of Cadiz, because I had to prepare for my show and couldn’t leave the ship. I’ll be returning later in the year though, so can explore then.

See all the photos at the sosauce.com album.

Next stop: Spain hates that Britain owns a bit of land sticking out into the Straits of Gibraltar, joined onto Spain. Meanwhile, on the other side of the same Strait, Spain owns a bit of land sticking out into the Med and joined to Morocco. It’s called Cueta, pictured above.

I took a nice walk, and for the first time I tried out my GPS tracker. Not only can I now plot out my walking routes on google earth, I can geotag my photos. If you check out the page of that photograph, you’ll see the longitude and latitude marked in the EXIF Photo Information. Maybe there’s a handy way to pinpoint the photo on a map which doesn’t involve opening Google Earth and importing KML files, like a one click “where is this?” link, but I’ve not worked it out yet.

Cueta isn’t very exciting. As far as I can tell, the only reason it exists is for duty free shopping trips from Spain.

Next stop: Casablanca!

This is my path around the city. At one point I walked down a long road, and the footpath was always set back under the buildings, which was a nice way to avoid the sun. The GPS really screwed up though, as you can see be the utterly erratic section!

Casablanca good and bad:

Good: Taxi’s are very cheap.
Bad: One driver dropped me off at the wrong place, which happened to be next to an associate’s shop.
Good: The Medina is an good place to visit! Very vibrant, with some amazing low-tech fixing and interesting markets.
Bad: Two young men tried to mug me. “Give me your phone!” One said, and when I turned away his partner had turned up behind me. A bit of arm grabbing (and some shouting by me to attract attention) later and some other locals told them to stop. Pro Traveler Tip: concealing camera in bag and phone in pocket won’t help if you’re wearing white Apple earbuds. Earbuds are good for ignoring beggars, as you can pretend you’ve not heard them as well as not seeing them… but not great for Morocco!
Good: The Mosque is very impressive.
Bad: It only opens to infidels after 2pm, and I didn’t want to wait.
Good: I think I’ve seen everything I need or want to see in Casablanca on one trip.

Next stop: Funchal, Madeira.

I only remembered to turn on my GPS tracker once I was in the cable car. Oops! Also it the paths go all over when I’m walking between buildings. I guess that’s what comes from going with the cheapest GPS option. Still, it’s good enough for me at the moment.

I’d heard about a “luge” that you can take down the hill from the top of the cable car ride. “Great,” thought I, remembering the fun I had on a luge in the Czech Republic last year:

It turned out my informant got the wrong word. What he was looking for was “toboggan.” This comes from farmers delivering their goods to Funchal in baskets, and sliding them down the paved road into town. This has evolved into a tourist attraction, where you too can sit in a basket and be pushed down a hill by two local men.

I gave it a go anyway, and actually quite enjoyed it, despite the expense. However, as I was expecting a luge, and got a toboggan, disappointment was always nagging at the edge of my mind.

After the ride I walked a bit around the town, but didn’t put in much effort to find things to do. Funchal is another port I’ll be visiting later in the year, so I plan to get out of town itself and explore the island a bit more then.

Tenerife: went straight to the airport, and saw very little. I’ll be visiting again later this year too, so hope to take a trip to see a volcano.

That’s it!

I made a video showing a large majority of all the photos Pola and I took of ourselves while holding the camera at arm’s length. It wasn’t something I planned to do, but I wanted to get all the photos from the last 5 years into one place (and backed up in another place) and to do this only took an hour or so:

Second, I released a new episode of the Science Fiction Book Review Podcast.

Of course, I went to the British Juggling Convention. I didn’t take a camera with me though, so have nothing to share. I’ll be writing a review/report/article for the Kaskade magazine though, and I might do a Juggling Podcast episode.

Today I bought myself a new DSLR camera. Pola’s keeping the Canon 400D we had, so I just got myself a 500D as a straight replacement. I’d love to have got a much nicer camera, like a 50D or the 5D Mark II, but I really can’t justify spending so much on what amounts to an already expensive hobby. Two cool things though:

On Wednesday I turned 29 years old. In sharing the news on Twitter I discovered a fun thing about Wolfram Alpha. Any time I want to know EXACTLY how old I am, I can just click this link: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=seconds+since+16%3A19+august+26th+1980. As a birthday present, my Berlin friends bought me an off-road trails session on a fat tire Segway. I think I’m unjustifiably excited about this.

I’ve written many words on my latest novel project. Not as many as I’d hoped, but I’ve not been very well.

I’ve booked my flight to the Turkish Juggling Convention in October. This is going to be awesome. I’ve wanted to go for the past 3 years, but have never had the time. This year I got a cruise ship gig leaving Turkey 2 days after the end of the convention, so I only have to work out travel one way. How could I turn down the opportunity?

I think that’s everything. Or at least everything I can share.

But I was missing a crucial plot point! The back story thread, following Adam, sort of faded out a bit at the end. I was struggling to find a way to make the end of that thread tie up with the end of the main thread. It tied up perfectly with the beginning and middle of the main thread, but not the end. It was like the beginning of the main thread was the last act of the back story thread.

So I decided to split the story completely into two parts. Instead of writing one novel, I’d write two novellas. Of course, I tackled the Adam’s story first. Meanwhile, life paused for a bit while I split up with my girlfriend… but that’s another story.

Anyway, yesterday I read a great post on Larry Brooks’ Story Fix blog called The Single Most Powerful Writing Tool You’ll Ever See That Fits On One Page. It’s just a series of questions, and if you can answer them all about your story, you should be about ready to start writing.

The “follow the classic story structure” advice is always good, and Larry is a story architecture nazi, from what I’ve read of his blog. The structures and guidelines he gives aren’t new to me, my previous writing follows them quite closely, and I guess I have a quite intuitive understanding of what a story needs and when.

But this set of questions was exactly what I needed!

All I did was answer the questions one by one, and suddenly what I needed to do in the Adam story became crystal clear. It was an “Of course! How could it be any other way?” kind of moment.

So, the two threads of the story can now be re-entwined. Combat (working title) is a single project once more! I’ll start page one tomorrow. I’ll go for 1500 words a day, and aim for Adam’s thread completed before the end of August.

And the set of questions? You can read them on Larry’s blog, or check them out below. I even filled in the answers! Not for my novel, because I wouldn’t want to spoil it; as an experiment I deconstructed The Matrix.

What is the conceptual hook/appeal of your story? You can’t trust reality/we are all batteries.

What is the theme(s) of your story? Among other ideas; guns are fucking cool.

How does your story open? Is there an immediate hook? A chase across the rooftops and leather clad kickassery.

* what is the hero doing in their life before the first plot point? Office worker.
* what stakes are established prior to the first plot point? Has a safe existence.
* what is your character’s backstory? Spends his nights hacking.
* what inner demons show up here that will come to bear on the hero later in the story? Scared of heights. A bit lonely too.
* what is foreshadowed prior to the first plot point? Mouth sealed shut in the “Reality isn’t what I thought” kind of way.

What is the first plot point in your story? Swallows the pill. Everything changes.

* is it located properly within the story sequence? Yes.
* how does it change the hero’s agenda going forward? Finds out reality is different than he thought.
* what is the nature of the hero’s new need/quest? Needs to find out if he is who Morpheus hopes.
* what is at stake relative to meeting that need? Freeing of humans, or so he is told.
* what opposes the hero in meeting that need? Tracked by agents who want to find Morpheus.
* what does the antagonistic force have at stake? Wants to get into Zion.
* why will the reader empathize with the hero at this point? Yes, we’re all office workers who want to believe there is more meaning in the world.
* how does the hero respond to the antagonistic force? Learns fucking kung fu.

What is the mid-point contextual shift/twist in your story? Cypher’s meeting with Agent Smith.

* how does it part the curtain of superior knowledge…? We now know there is a double agent, and Morpheus is in danger.
* … for the hero?… and/or, for the reader? Neo doesn’t know. We do.
* how does this shift the context of the story? Morpheus is now the main prize for the agents, but we know Neo will be trouble for them.
* how does this pump up dramatic tension and pace? In so many good ways.

How does your hero begin to successfully attack their need/quest? Guns. Lots of guns.

* how does the antagonistic force respond to this attack? Agents start jumping into any human avatar.
* how do the hero’s inner demons come to bear on this attack? Jumps in feet first. Also he trusts Trinity, knows she loves him.

What is the all-is-lost lull just before the second plot point? A talk with Morpheus about how humans are a virus.

What is the second plot point in your story? Neo says “There is no spoon” and shoots the top of the lift.

* how does this change or affect the hero’s proactive role? He’s worked out how to control the matrix.

How is your hero the primary catalyst for the successful resolution of the central problem or issue in this story? From here on in it is his control of the matrix that lets him defeat the Agents.

* how does it meet the hero’s need and fulfill the quest? He has found his identity, saved Morpheus, and got the agents on the run. Agents running, not humans.
* how does the hero demonstrate the conquering of inner demons? He is certainly no longer afraid of heights.
* how are the stakes of the story paid off? Zion is safe. Neo gets the girl too.
* what will be the reader’s emotional experience as the story concludes? Exuberance, and a nervousness about the reality of the universe.

Sort out your titles and ID3 tags right now!

Not every single person downloads podcasts via iTunes, which re-titles and stores the audio files using the information in the RSS feed. Many, many, many people, even regular listeners, download each episode with their browser, then transfer the file to a player.

So the following instructions goes for anyone starting a new podcast. You know the name of your podcast, right? Good. Now make sure you do the following from the very first episode:

- Begin the file name with the name of your podcast. If the name is really long, go for an acronym.
- The next part of your file name should be the episode number. This should be at least three digits long. Start with 001.
- The last part of your file name should be the topic or title of the episode.

If you do the above, the collected files from your podcast line up perfectly in any list of files and on immediate import into any software. If you start at “1″ and go on to “2″, when you get to “11″ it’ll be listed before “2″ in many situations.

And so, even without ID3 tag information, your listeners will be able to quickly see what is what.

On to ID3 tags:

- Make sure the “genre” is set to “Podcast”! Many podcasts are categorized as a blues track! WTF?
- Make sure the track number matches the episode number.
- List the hosts and the guests in Artist category.
- Make sure the album info is the same in EVERY podcast from the first episode on.
- Set the year to the year you published the podcast.
- Adding artwork is good, but not crucial. iTunes and iPods like it though, as they display really nicely.

By the way, all of this takes seconds in iTunes. The only problem is that it can change the name of the file (not a bad thing) to include the track number at the start (the bad thing). In this case, just copy the file to a different location and change the name before you upload it.

So, after seeing yet another link to the same website, I thought I’d share a photo of the place I write. I’ve got time to spare at the moment*, so got out the tripod:

Of course, I travel a lot, and much of my writing (and even more of my re-writing and editing) is accomplished while sitting in the same position but in hotel rooms and cruise ship staterooms around the world. But at home, when I write, I do it lounging in the living room.

Things in this photo:
- Me
- My laptop. It’s a MacBook, so often gets quite hot, which is why it isn’t on my lap.
- A very large couch. I can sit on this in many positions and orientations.
- A lamp. Reflected light off the wall is plenty to light my keyboard.
- A big piece of art. Made by Pola.
- A mobile. Made from twigs.
- A globe. It is very old and dated, but globes are the only way to really get a sense of the shape and size of different places in the world.
- A ladder. This leads to the bedroom/office.
- A window. This leads to the kitchen, important for the provision of drinks.
- A chandelier. Only turned on during large dinner parties.
- A blanket. Nice for if I get chilly.
- Three white boxes, stacked. These hold magazines, photo albums and many an atlas.
- A large fuzzy mat. This is to make the expanse of wooden floor more friendly.

Compared to the authors on the Where I Write website, my place is either more comfortable or more tidy than them all. John O’Niell looks comfy, but is surrounded by clutter. Nowhere near as much clutter as Samuel R. Delany, but it’s still there. John Harrison is tidy, but the room doesn’t look that inviting.

Why no mess for me? And why not sit at a desk?

First, all my notes are on my laptop, and my laptop is backed up every day. If I need to do research, I usually do it via electronic sources, online or via ebooks.

Second, I outsource my library/bookshelf functions to the Another Country bookshop, which is only a few hundred meters away, and has about 25,000 books. Any book I want I either borrow from there or buy it new from another shop, and then, to avoid clutter at home, donate the new books so borrowing books is free.

Third, and this relates to no clutter as well as my comfort, I’m not a professional writer! Why the hell should I sit at a desk as though I’m working? I get paid for my writing, but not for my fiction. Like Ted Chiang, I write fiction because I enjoy it, and have a real job to support my hobby. That is, if being a professional juggler can count as a real job.

Catch you later…

* Due to recently becoming single for the first time in 4.5 years I’m not really into writing at the moment, nor much of anything. Regular posts will resume shorty.

So, here’s where I’m up to regarding my August novel attempt, learning from my experiences of the last 10 months:

It has a working title. This makes it easier to talk about. Until someone comes up with a better idea I’ll be calling it “Combat Story (working title)”. As it is set in the same world as “Minding Tomorrow”, and deals with vision rather than memory I thought giving it the working title of “Blinding Tomorrow” and the third novel in the sequence “Finding Tomorrow” or something. But I think that would be a bit confusing.

I’ve decided to write a story idea that I’ve had for a looooong time. It’s been in my head so long that:
- some of the main ideas in “Minding Tomorrow” were actually first meant for “Combat Story”, like the viewsers and some of the brain imaging technology. And more besides, but that would spoil both novels.
- it features two characters from my first ever novel, a non-SF murder mystery, though they are minor characters in this story.
- knowing that the events of “Combat Story” happen in the same universe as “Minding Tomorrow”, I made sure to write them into that story too.
- this means that “Minding Tomorrow” features characters from “Combat Story” and vica versa, though only in minor and mysterious roles.

In the spirit of the “write what you know” rule, I’ve decided that juggling is going to feature in this story.

This novel is not a sequel, it is more of a companion novel. A reader could read either “Minding Tomorrow” or “Combat Story” first, and it won’t spoil the other.

Also, it is going to be a different style… a more direct narrative, and a lot more action. It could even be classed as military SF, but I’m thinking more along the lines of “near future, hard science fiction, action heavy, techno-thriller” vibe.

To make sure I know exactly what is happening, I’ve made notes. A LOT of notes. About the plot, characters, ideas, everything. I’ve listed all the scenes, and what needs to happen in each. I mean, I’m up to about 6,000 words of notes, and I still have a few thousand more to go before I’m set. When I start writing in a few days time I’ll be able to hit the ground running.

Unlike “Monster Story (working title)”, where I didn’t name any characters (I don’t like naming things), and instead used place holders like AAAA, BBBB, etc, this time I’ve given all the characters names from the start. The names may change, but I hope they’ll lead to some interesting character moments

I plan for “Combat Story” to be longer than my other two completed novels. I’m not sure of the exact length, but it might clock in at 70,000 words.

Instead of focusing on word count, I’m going to focus on scenes/chapters. Each day I’ll write a scene. Or two. I actually have between forty and fifty scenes, but I know some of those aren’t needed, and I know new scenes will present themselves as I progress. Like in “Monster Story”, a line in my notes like “Two characters do X” would take four chapters, and a huge stretch of notes about what information needed to be shared with the reader would be CONDENSED by the time it got into the story. I’ll just have to busk this as I go along.

To keep myself honest, I’ll still be keeping track of my word count, and aim for about 1,500 per day. I might even post word count updates on twitter, so my followers can bug me if I skip a day. Unless it pisses them off.

Anyway, I’m really looking forward to the new adventure. I know by putting the work in up-front, it will take a lot less editing afterward. Judging by initial feedback for “Monster Story” I think I’m getting to the point where my stories are more suitable for release a lot quicker than before. Maybe, if I’m happy with it, I could get it out before the end of the year.

And who knows, if I do a NaNoWriMo novel in November, and release that story quickly too (another story I’ve had in my mind for years), I might release four novels within a year. This time last year I’d never believe that to be possible for a non-full-time writer, but here I am giving it a good shot.