Fanatical Pupil

Come on now. I was just reading this 7 Deadly Questions interview with Joanna Penn and while talking (or writing, I suppose) about kick-ass female protagonists, she mentions a book by Brad Thor called The Athena Project. All I can say is, it’s a good thing I published Episode 1 of the Valkyrie Project only 6 days after Thor’s release date for The Athena Project, because I will be the first to admit that the premises sound very similar. Although mine is clearly speculative near future fiction while Brad’s takes place in a contemporary setting.

Another key difference is that the first 4 episodes of The Valkyrie Project are currently available in all electronic formats for free on Smashwords, while Mr. Thor’s book will set you back $14.99 for an electronic version (though the hardcover version is somehow available from 3rd party sellers starting at only $5.82). The Athena Project is also available at The Chicago Public Library, which is probably where I’ll get it from because I’m not a fan of hardcover books (especially owning and storing them) and there is no way I’m going to pay $14.99 for an ebook.

And it looks like another key difference is that The Athena Project is being made into a movie. Since it sounds like a book I would probably like, it sounds like a movie I would like as well. I’m all about kick ass female protagonists: Buffy in Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Sydney in Alias, Kate in LOST, Sarah Connor and Cameron in The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Echo in The Dollhouse, Olivia in Fringe, Kate in Castle, even Nikita in Nikita. Also, from that list that I was able to come up with off the top of my head, it appears that I’m not the only one who likes a strong female presence in their sci-fi (or detective or spy comedramas). Also, it should be obvious from that list why I am writing an episodic sci-fi serial with a female protagonist. In fact, if Facebook still allowed free form text in their Favorites section, I could probably just put: Episodic Sci-fi Serials with Female Protagonists as my top favorite thing.

Final key difference (for now), Athena was the Goddess of War (among other things, of course, but mostly war) who sprung forth from Zeus’s head while the Valkyries decide who will die in battle and then select from among those who die the ones that will join Odin in Valhalla to prepare for Ragnarok (sort of making them eternal warriors, which is kind of awesome). I will be interested to see if Thor’s book uses the Athena aspect at all or if it just comes as a name for strong females that the government though sounded cool when they named the project. The Valkyries in The Valkyrie Project take on tasks that at least resemble those of their Norse predecessors, and I am trying to make the correlation as strong as possible within the context of the story.

Tinashé – Zambezi

I don’t know much about Tinashé, and I haven’t really been able to find much, but he does have a website and an album coming out 9/13. (We’ll pretend like the whole album concept is still relevant even though artists can have their music heard all over the world through the magic of the internet.)

From one of my new favorite sites: Pigeons and Planes.

According to the first 500 words of the Valkyrie Project…

I write like
Dan Brown

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

Having only read The Da Vinci Code, all I can say is: ouch. I certainly wouldn’t mind selling millions of copies of my books, but I’ve seen other authors names on those IWL badges and I’d much rather be like any of those.

Another 700 works from later in the Valkyrie Project bring me to the same result. I guess I shall have to resort to some sort of gimmickery now to get people to read my work. Oh well. I suppose it’s better than if I’d turned out to write like Stephanie Meyer.

One of my friends just “shared this with me on Facebook”: ‘Mass Effect 2′ role departure for ‘Chuck’ actress. The long and short is that Yvonne Strahovski is playing “the woman” (aka Miranda Lawson – you might recognize her as the well-endowed woman in white from the commercials if you’ve watched any TV at all lately) in Mass Effect 2. BioWare even did the creepy thing where they scan the person’s face and then make the character look just like them. (Sorry, I like it when video game people look like people, but not people I know – unless they’re actually supposed to be that person)
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Weren’t we all once?

The Babbling Flow of a Fledgling Scribbler: Young Writers…ROCK ON!!.

I feel like I could have written this post myself…

I recently stumbled across a blog with a post written about college students and why they shouldn’t try so hard to get published while in college–because they’ll miss too much of the “college” experience. … After college I got a job in marketing. And then in Government consulting. And then in teaching (math, of all things). I wasted those five years, nine actually, if you count the four while in school. If I’d focused on writing during that time, maybe I’d already have a few books in the stores.

Myself, I did a lot of idea development during my college and post-college years. I guess if you count the start of my wanting to be a professional writer for real as 2007, then really, that’s only 3 years post-college, but I went to college for 6 years when you include undergrad and grad school. So, all told, I also “wasted” nine years, just like Sara.

My one comfort is that I can usually look up writers I like on Wikipedia and find that they are a lot older than I am. Of course, most of them also have a bibliography that go back a ways, but I try to ignore that so I can tell myself that it’s okay to if I have to write for a few more years before I actually get anything worthy of publishing.