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Author: S.M. Carrière

When S.M. Carrière isn't brutally killing your favourite characters, she spends her time teaching martial arts, live streaming video games, and cuddling her cats. In other words, she spends her time teaching others to kill, streaming her digital kills, and cuddling furry murderers. Her most recent titles include 'Daughters of Britain' and 'Skylark.' https://www.smcarriere.com/
The Lost Art of Narrative Music Videos

The Lost Art of Narrative Music Videos

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Image by Thomas Budach from Pixabay

A few weeks ago, actually probably a couple of months ago, now that I think about it, an artist I have been following for a while dropped a music video. Ordinarily, I’d not really mention it here, though I do think the artist in question is extraordinary and the song is a bop, as the kids say. It wasn’t the song that kept me watching, however. Most times with music videos, I open them on my YouTube, then go to a different tab to do work.

Not this time.

What I watched wasn’t really a music video. I mean, it was a video and it did feature a single song, and was created for the specific purpose of presenting the song to the world. However, the video itself was a story – a short film. It had an inciting incident, the hero’s lowest point, and a satisfying conclusion. This tale was specifically, it was a short cyber-punk Robin Hood tale. The visuals were spectacular, the acting quite good (if somewhat melodramatic), and the story compelling.

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Lessons Learned

Lessons Learned

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Image by psychofladoodle from Pixabay.

I have been thinking a lot recently about life, writing and all the things that orbit around those things. Currently, while I’m waiting for things here in Ottawa, Canada to return to something approaching normal again (it looks like we’ll be close at the beginning of 2022), there isn’t much else I’ve been able to do. I find in my writing endeavors, I’m chugging along well enough, but a daily routine of writing at lunch isn’t really anything worth blogging about. As for films and television, I’m falling back to old favorites, as they are comforting and relatively without stressed. I know what’s going to happen.

It has been quite depressing to all my youthful hopes and dreams that I haven’t been able to make a living writing. I wasn’t expecting to become rich. But I was hoping to be able to scrape by. That has not materialized. It was a hard lesson to learn, really, particularly since I have to keep relearning it every time I get any time at all to think about life and where I am in it.

Writing, however, has taught me an awful lot about life that I’m extremely grateful for, that translates well in almost every other endeavor of mine.

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Video Game to Film – A Reason to Hope

Video Game to Film – A Reason to Hope

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Image by PublicDomainPictures from Pixabay

Good morning, Readers!

I was recently quite ill, and while under basically house arrest, stuck in my room with neither the ability or the will to go anywhere else, I came across a trailer for the new Mortal Kombat movie that piqued my interest. At the end of the trailer, I literally scream-laughed. Needless to say, I’m going to see this movie for, and only for, Kano, who was so quintessentially Aussie it could not help but make me roar with delight.

Here’s the trailer, for those who are curious.

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Harsh Writing Advice (™)

Harsh Writing Advice (™)

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Image by dae jeung kim from Pixabay

There have been a few hot takes in writing Twitter since the last time I posted. Most of them I’ve already made comment on in older posts either here or on my personal blog; mostly refuting these hot takes… though sometimes with caveats.

Let’s see, there was the ill-conceived screed against fan fiction by an author whose published work is ironically a ‘retelling.’ I don’t have the time or the energy to go over her nonsense and point out all the ways it is, in fact, nonsense, not least of all because writing Twitter did such a thorough job of it on Twitter. It’s highly amusing, if ever you want to seek it out.

The other one I’ve noted is the recent wave of harsh writing advice (™). Twitter immediate took the original poster to task, writing some of the funniest, silliest harsh writing advice (™) I’ve read of late. This gentle mocking of the idea of harsh writing advice is, to my mind, the perfect way to deal with harsh writing advice (™).

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Writing Together, Apart

Writing Together, Apart

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Image by Patrik Houštecký from Pixabay

Good morning! What a fortnight it has been. The news is insane, isn’t it? I’m not going to talk about it here. Instead, I’m going to talk about something that I did a couple of weeks ago that brought me joy.

I am a member of my local SFF writing community here in Ottawa (Canada, just to be clear). Thanks to the raging pandemic, we did not have our annual gathering of incredible minds and imaginations that is Ottawa’s own Can*Con. I find the press and bustle of people incredibly stressful, but this convention is always so enjoyable, I risk a panic attack every year just to attend. I love it.

Thankfully, the organizers of Can*Con haven’t left us entirely floundering in the dark. They are live-streaming incredibly thoughtful panels on YouTube every so often (by the by, you can subscribe to their YouTube channel here), and the Facebook group is pretty active with articles and sometimes even book recommendations.

Our humble little community is genuinely lovely to be a part of. I’m terribly glad for it. One of my favourite things, though, is something that I’ve only done once thus far, that the organizers of Can*Con has set up for its members.

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The Edge of a Knife – Writing Representation

The Edge of a Knife – Writing Representation

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Angeles Balaguer from Pixabay

Blessedly, I have returned to writing. As a birthday gift to myself, I bought myself an iPad, which didn’t arrive until the middle of December (thank you order delays) to replace the laptop I had that was long dead. I was going to get Word for iPad, but because of the new size of the device, Microsoft decided that I had to pay for it. Had the screen been half an inch smaller, I’d be eligible for the free version. So instead, I went and found a really decent free word processor that serves really well for my writing needs. It’s simple, intuitive and can save as .docx. So far, I can highly recommend WPS Office.

But that’s not the point of the post. The point is, I have a problem. It’s a low-key anxiety sitting in the back of my mind as I write. You see, I am currently working on two stories that centre characters that are not… well, white. And I’m struggling.

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A Solstice Story

A Solstice Story

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There’s just something magical about snow at Christmas time. Image by zanna-76 from Pixabay

It’s going to be a rough Christmas for many of us. Where I am, the government is considering an immediate, province-wide shutdown. Just a few days before Christmas. This means that I won’t be able to see my brother, who had been planning to come up and see us (he’s been very good about quarantining, so I feel safe hanging out with him). It is all for the best, though, as cases of our particular plague are spiking and hospitals are struggling to cope as it is. It’s looking increasingly like this Christmas I’ll have my cat, and Zoom. It’s a good thing my cat is a cuddle-monster. I’ll at least have some affection.

What I also have in these difficult times are stories. Stories, in fact, have gotten me, in particular, through so really tough times. Really tough. Since I have nothing else to offer today, I thought that I’d offer a story. I wrote this last year for my publisher’s Christmas season blog hop, so it’s not an original. I mean, it’s original to me, but it’s not new. Sorry. I’ve been a bit caught up making my Christmas gifts this year and I’ve run out of time.

In any case, here it is.

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Writing Advice: Get Spiteful

Writing Advice: Get Spiteful

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What a stunning walk this would be. Image by Tim Hill from Pixabay

Good afternoon, Readers!

I have a hot take:

Spite is as good a reason for creating as any.

Wait. Hear me out. Let me explain.

This past week, I was hit with two important rejections. They hit harder than rejections normally do. I’ve been at the writing game a long, long time. I’m used to rejections. Sure, I really wanted to succeed this time, but I always really want to succeed. Normally rejections just make me sad for a little bit. I drink a bit of whiskey – alright, a little bit more than a bit of whiskey – and I pick myself up and try again. This time… this time I went through the whole gamut of stages of grief. Except for denial. I’ve had too many rejections for denial to ever come up. It’s totally believable that it would happen.

Also, bargaining didn’t happen. What was I going to do? Whinge at them until their minds changed? Psht.

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Adding to My List of Obsessions: The Untamed

Adding to My List of Obsessions: The Untamed

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The Untamed Banner

I have a new obsession. I seem to be switching obsessions a lot, but the truth is I’m not switching anything at all. I’m simply adding. This time around, I’m absolutely infatuated with a show on Netflix that I’m a little mad took me so long to check out. That show is The Untamed, a 2017 live-action adaptation of the Chinese fantasy novel Mo Dao Zu Shi (Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation is the English title) by author Mo Xiang Tong Xiu. The novel is not yet officially translated into English, but I’m desperate for it to be. I want this thing on my shelf. Like, yesterday. Granted, since it’s a web novel, it’s not likely to be on anyone’s actual shelf, but lordy do I want this book as a real thing in my hands.

Anyway, the show is wonderful. I understand that, from my very basic research from this post, that the live-action adaptation is quite divergent from the novel, so I’m content to watch the show while waiting for that official English translation (there are unofficial online translations, but I would like to put money into the hands of the author, you know?), knowing that the two are different enough that my enjoyment of the novel won’t be impacted by having watched the adaptation first. Also, apparently this adaptation is only one of many, and so I might have to go and find other adaptations.

The story itself is a multi-layered fantasy epic drama with grand themes of belonging, family, clan rivalry, justice and love. Centering around Wei Wuxian, also known as Wei Ying or the Yiling Patriarch, an orphaned child who was adopted by his father’s master’s family and is considered a sibling of the master’s two children Jiang Cheng and Jiang Yanli, the story is often funny, and terribly sweet, and also very, very dark.

It doesn’t pull punches, killing many folks, straining and breaking relationships, and turning heroes into villains. Everything is difficult, and you can understand why people act the way they do, calling into question what you might do if you were caught in these positions. Essentially, it’s my favorite kind of story. Give me the darkness. Give me unsure characters and well-meaning people who unwittingly make bad choices. Give me consequence and heartache and despair. Those alone, however, do not make this one of my recent favorites. What really makes it for me is the thread of a deep abiding love that moves like gossamer throughout the whole piece; a glittering filament of hope that grabs a hold of the heart and doesn’t let go.

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