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May 1, 2000

On the Road with the NNG

They say that "April is the cruelest month," and in some respect it was for me this year. As you know if you've read my other Notes, I started a new job at the end of January. Now, I love my job, its challenges, opportunities, and the sense of accomplishment it gives me, but lately it has definitely been keeping me extremely busy.

Part of the busy-ness of my new business has me travelling a lot more than I ever have before (and, truth be told, a lot more than I expected). Over the past month, for instance, I've found myself in Boston, Las Vegas, New York City, and New Jersey. And right now, as I type this, I'm 33,000 feet up on my way to Philadelphia.

Why bring this up (other than, perhaps, to try to impress you with my "worldly" ways)? Well, I feel the need to apologize again for the lack of updates on the NNG. Don't be concerned--I have no intention of giving up the site--but I just wanted to explain a bit about what's been going on.

That said, let me take a further moment to let you know a bit about how I do an episode review. First, I like to watch the episode straight through three or four times before I even consider analyzing it. And preferably, there's some time between successive viewings, to give me time to think about the episode and how it relates to the other episodes and to the milieu that is the SG-1 universe.

During the actual review, I take (very messy) notes on problems I see, questions I'm asking myself, and all those great -isms, addresses, and other very nitpicky details (ok, who knows Cromwell's authorization code?). There's a lot of pausing and rewinding during this, so it can take an hour or more to review each 44 minute episode.

Once the notes are done, I sit down at my laptop, fire up HomeSite, and start turning my chicken scratchings into bullet points in the various categories. Getting the phrasing just right (and sometimes just deciding what category a nitpick belongs to) means that editing the HTML page for the episode can take another hour or more as well. But finally, I update the updates and home page, make any other necessary changes to the site, and FTP the files up to Vortxweb (GREAT web hosting, by the way).

So now you know why it takes me awhile, under the best of circumstances, to complete an episode analysis. And April definitely wasn't the best of circumstances. *grin* Hopefully, May and June will be better, and I'll be caught up (or at least close) by the time Small Victories airs on June 30th.

-- Meli

The Book Nook

This month, we have two books from Writer's Digest, publishers of great reference materials for authors of all shapes and sizes. Even though I haven't had the nerve yet to put some of my own fanfic ideas down on paper, I thought some of the authors out there might find these helpful.

Beginnings, Middles & Ends by Nancy Kress (May 2000)

Writer's Digest Books' Fiction Writing Series in general is a great series, though individual books do vary a bit in their quality and usefulness. I find this one to be a well-written approach to problem-solving the pacing in your story writing. Stories start out too slow? Bog down in the middle? Take so long winding along that the ending just sort of happens wham-bang? This book may be for you.

Writer's Digest Books / ISBN 890795508
How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy by Orson Scott Card (May 2000)

A great author himself, Orson Scott Card does an admirable job of describing those bits of writing that are unique in the science fiction and fantasy genre. I found his discussion of the "MICE" (milieu, idea, character, or event) quotient to be a particularly helpful way of thinking about what type of science fiction or fantasy you're trying to write.

Writer's Digest Books / ISBN 0890794161