The Lighter Side of Absolute Zero

It dawned on me tonight after I finished reading yet another short fiction horror story. Horror is too broad of a category and is more often a miss than hit with me, and so I thought about what kind of horror stories I really like: ghost stories. I like haunted house stories too, though those are largely ghost stories, but I’m realizing that most anthologies and magazines of horror stories have quite a lot of stories that just don’t interest me at all, and yet even the oldest and most classic ghost stories still keep me coming back to read them. Maybe I need to find some modern ghost story anthologies.

Addendum: Upon further reflection I can add what I call “creature” stories to the list as well. This would include stories like Frankenstein, the Mummy, wolf-men, and Dracula. The more imaginative the monster/creature the better, which may be why Lovecraft is quite fun.

Posted by Seth Croston Barber at 10:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Somewhere it has been mentioned that a step in improving oneself as a programmer is to make a list of programmers you admire and — that’s where I stop. I have been so terribly under-exposed to programmers, let alone good programmers, that I have been working in a near-vacuum the past dozen years. I’ve seen and maintained my fair share of bad code; in fact among my friends we constantly try to steal the “I have the worst code-base to maintain” award. I know what bad code looks like. What I don’t have exposure to is good code, and good programmers.

There are good programmers out there, ones far better than I, and I want to find some. I would love to work alongside at least one before I retire from this industry. My only question now is who are these programmers and how can I be exposed to their work? I’m open to suggestions.

Posted by Seth Croston Barber at 11:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

I made a personal discovery last night: I finally know what it is I like about H.P. Lovecraft’s stories, and by extension what I like in the horror genre. For a long time I have been trying to figure out what I like in these stories and what it is that draws me to Lovecraft that does not draw me to other horror writers. At first I thought it was just that Lovecraft wrote “weird fiction” but that is too vague a category to be of any help at all. While some may argue that what I’m about to say would be an inaccurate summation of all of Lovecraft’s work I would like to point out that this is the element I like about his stories (and thus his stories that lack this element are not among my favourites).

Lovecraft’s stories are detective mystery stories. The stories I gravitate to are the ones where something unexplained has happened and now the protagonist will go about figuring out what is going on. It is the same reason I like Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, Miss Marple, and a host of other detectives. What I like more about horror mystery-detective stories is that the story is not about a murder and a who-dun-it.

So now I know. I like stories where something inexplicable has happened. An impossible thing has occurred and our protagonist will seek to uncover the truth. She may be an unwilling protagonist, caught up in an event far beyond her ken or control. He may be an intrepid investigator on the trail of a great mystery, soon to engulf him in a world of madness. They are tales of the bizarre and the unreal, but made real, and told to reveal the mystery (but not quite!) in a detective sort of way.

Posted by Seth Croston Barber at 10:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

It’s taken me a year, one full year to the day in fact, to realize something it appears I already knew: in weird fiction/horror atmosphere is of utmost importance. In an effort to come up with an acceptable haunt for my Halloween story this month I’ve hit brick-wall after brick-wall. Tonight it suddenly dawned on me: if I render down all the good weird fiction stories I have ever read I have weak-sauce for the haunts. Nearly all of Lovecraft’s antagonists are simply aliens aeons old and supremely powerful, but aliens nonetheless.

The haunt is not as important as the atmosphere. The thing about weird fiction that makes it great is the atmosphere it paints, the way in which the haunt is revealed, and how much is revealed. The author may know that the thing in the dark is just a misunderstood trans-dimensional creature scared out of its mind and looking for it’s mommy, and while that isn’t weird or horrific the presentation can be.

Will this mean I can find some banal source for the weirdness in my Halloween story, and still tell a chilling tale come the end of this month? I’ll find out!

Posted by Seth Croston Barber at 10:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

I’ve been doing some thinking about writer’s block lately, mostly because I find myself in a situation where I cannot move on any of my fiction writing projects, and I thus consider myself blocked (though in truth there is nothing stopping me from working on my novel; nothing but a lack of interest on my part). I’ve come to a rather interesting take on my form of writer’s block. In my case when I say I have writer’s block I usually mean I am lacking some solution to a problem in my story.

At present I am at a loss for some key plot points in one of my stories. I also only have a vague idea of the characters involved, but they will grow as the story takes shape. Actually, in most of my stories my block has to do with plot (I always struggle with plots). I either don’t know how to get my characters on to the next point in the story, or I don’t know what the next point will be, or worse (but far too often) I don’t know what the end of the story looks like.

Can I call what I have writer’s block? Am I just in search of a story worth telling, or do I really have some kind of block? I consider myself to not be blocked, but to face challenges of getting characters to act within their nature and yet still move along the plot I want to tell. Although I don’t always know what that plot is.

Posted by Seth Croston Barber at 12:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

I hate to admit this but when it’s true, it’s true nonetheless. I forgot a lesson, a platitude, or more accurately I forgot and disregarded it. I’ve always been told that it’s good to step away from your creative work and come back to it when you are fresh. Usually this advice is given to help out those artists who reach some kind of block or are frustrated with the current outcome.

Monday I did some drawing and it was nothing like what I wanted, so I quit for the night before I got frustrated. I maybe didn’t quit soon enough because I came to hate that drawing and I could not bring myself to look at it again. Last night my wife wanted to look at it again and when I uncovered it I accidently saw it. It’s good. It’s not the picture I wanted to draw but I could not deny it was still a good image.

I’m not as disgusted with myself as I once was, because I know my skill isn’t all that bad, I just had a mental lapse of what I wanted to accomplish and could not make that happen. I need more practice, but that does not mean I’m terrible. The moral of the story is I need to remember walking away and coming back days later actually works.

Posted by Seth Croston Barber at 11:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The most important aspect of playing any game is having fun. Fun should not be dependent upon winning for the simple fact that there will usually be more losers than winners. Fun should be had in the playing of the game and/or in being social.

Posted by Seth Croston Barber at 11:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Perfectionists aren’t happy with imperfection.
Problem solvers aren’t happy when everything is perfect.
I am a problem solver and a perfectionist.
I am never happy.

(So stop saying things like, “I just want you to be happy.”) :)

Posted by Seth Croston Barber at 9:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)