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Photo Credit: Rayi Christian.
I found out that New Human Fictions, edited by Nicholas van Orden and published by Inter-Disciplinary Press recently came out.
My chapter Sam Worthington: Negotiating Humanity in Avatar and Terminator Salvation is part of the featured essays. It is a longer version of the one I originally presented at an Oxford conference in summer 2012 and which was then published as “Sam Worthington: Hybrid” Faces in Navigating Cybercultures, edited by Nicholas van Orden, Inter-Disciplinary Press (UK).
This is the description of the book:
New Human Fictions addresses a range of themes relating to life in our digitally networked age. With contributions by emerging and established scholars from around the world, the chapters collected here explore intersections of cyberspaces and human communities. Video games, science fiction, architecture, viral videos, films, and digital spaces are surveyed; hybrid bodies and cyborg cultures are examined; and traditional distinctions between mind and body, human and machine, and real and virtual are happily disrupted. Three general themes develop throughout this book; these three themes focus on the programmable human, technology and the body, and the impact of technology on cultural forms and artefacts. The chapters collected here are often difficult, but through careful and generous reading they suggest strategies for living alongside and within our new human fictions.
Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (2008-2009)
Set after the events in Terminator 2 (1991), Sarah Connor and her son, John, try to stay under-the-radar from the government, as they plot to destroy the computer network, Skynet, in hopes of preventing Armageddon. – IMDb
Source: Terminator Wiki.
Threshold (2005)
A team of experts are assembled after the U.S. Navy discovers an extra-terrestrial object briefly appeared near a ship in the Atlantic Ocean. – IMDb
Source: Wikipedia.
The Tomorrow People (2013-2014)
The story of several young people from around the world who represent the next stage in human evolution, possessing special powers, including the ability to teleport and communicate with each other telepathically. Together they work to defeat the forces of evil. – IMDb
Source: The Tomorrow People Wiki.
This week has been busy for blogging. Not only have I been able to release more than review posts, but I am also sitting on some upcoming projects for next week. I am grateful for so many interesting posts and discussions on other blogs that feed my own reflection and creativity. Stay tuned and until then, I’m sharing some links I have enjoyed!
Links: Feminism, Science Fiction, Fandom, Writing, Social Media
Image courtesy of khunaspix / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Thank you very much, Hayley (from Books Are Delicious) for tagging me in this writing process blog hop!
What Am I Working On?
The timing of this blog hop feels a little surreal to me, for right now I am not working on anything, since I have been suffering from a bad burnout all of April. I hope to be back on track around mid May though. I have been working on a lot of nonfiction/academic projects for the past year though. Right now, I have turned in the finished draft of my contracted book, Women in Science Fiction Television, so this is one huge accomplishment for me. I also have a few other papers (about Supernatural, Farscape, Avatar, Terminator Salvation, Star Wars) awaiting publication, but which are completed, unless I need to touch them up per the editor’s request. You can find all my published and upcoming publications on this page. I also am waiting on answers for other possible publications (about Yoko Tsuno, Pacific Rim, Star Wars, James Cameron’s Science Fiction movies) so I hope some of them will be positive!
The next project I want to tackle once I am back to normal and regular writing (besides my usual Star Wars roleplaying writing hobby which helps my creative muse and keeps me in the writing loop even when I suffer from academic burnout lie now) is a book proposal about Dana Scully from the X-Files. I have a few places where I plan to submit it to and I really hope I can find a publisher because I am very excited about this book project.
How Does My Work Differ From Others of Its Genre?
I work a lot on female characters in Science Fiction narratives, most of them on screen (Television, Cinema, Video games). I know I am not the only one who does this, but I am often interested in exploring characters through theme based comparison, as shown in my book, and also certain types of characters, such as what I called the Warrior Mothers (which I hope to expand on in the future). I am well aware that there is still a lot of room to get more layered and richer female characters, but being able to see the good ones that existed, even with some limitations at times, is very important for me. I also have side interests that nourish my main research axis, such as vidding, some 1990’s and 2000’s Bollywood movies, and some French series and movies.
The fact that I write about what I am passionate about is also a driving force in my work and I believe that it shows, although I am careful not to be blinded by some personal preferences. I also don’t mind sharing and writing about the sometimes not so popular opinions I can have regarding certain productions or characters. I believe that all opinions when expressed clearly, politely can bring positive things to a discussion.
Why Do I Write What I Write?
I have written since as far as I can remember, and I already liked telling stories before this. I dabbed into poetry when I was a child, wrote my first novella (Science Fiction for children) when fifteen and completed my first novel (YA dark fantasy) when I was twenty. Neither of these are published so far, though I have good hope to self publish the novella later this year. They are both in French though. I still have lots of notes for other novels, series of novels either in Science Fiction or Fantasy, but I haven’t touched original fiction in years. I believe I will go back to this one day, but now, it is academic writing that is my priority and what I like doing best.
I wrote several research papers over the past decade due to my lengthy studies in film and media studies. In 2009, I started a Ph.D. (which I quit in 2012), so publications and conferences were important. This gave me a renewed and more vibrant love for academic writing, papers and books. Along with my other projects, my writing has helped me establish myself as an independent scholar. I enjoy being able to write about so many topics that I love and being able to contribute to conversations and research about them.
How Does Your Writing Process Work?
I always keep a notebook with me when I’m not at the computer because I tend to have ideas for future papers/books out of the blue. I have four sub folders in my academic writing one: archive (drafts of published papers and documents from previous talks), in progress (what is accepted for publication but not published yet), published (final digital versions of published papers except when they were published in hard copies. These ones are on a shelf in my room) and various. The last sub folder comprises sub sub folders with what is submitted (and for which I am awaiting answers), book projects, WIP (some proposals that were turned down but that I can rework/resubmit at a later date) and one document which is my master list of paper ideas. This scary thing never ceases to grow.
I like being organized so I know where I can find things and I make sure to update my master list whenever I have a new paper idea. The book ideas tend to stand on their own as mentioned above. I admit that I don’t work on any projects, beyond the note taking, unless I have a place to submit it to for publication. I don’t like writing when I have nowhere to submit to. Finding call for papers where I can submit is extremely important for my nonfiction/academic creativity and focus, especially with all the trillion ideas I have. So, I check this site a few times a week, to see which call for papers I can respond to and then I go on the hunt in my master list and turned down abstracts to find something matching and that I feel like working on at the moment. My upcoming book proposal about Scully necessitated further research for publishers though, as I am interested in reaching out to American University Presses. I like that just like for other papers and previous books, there are guidelines to the different places I can submit to.
I enjoy working with deadlines and word counts. It helps me organize my schedule (so I make sure that I don’t accidentally pile up tons of deadlines at once and panic) and progress in my work. Right now, I am already with three other calls for paper I could answer to, depending on how things go. I always then work from my notes and then make sure to establish the structure of the paper or book, so I can break my word count into smaller parts. I tend to focus on a project at a time when writing. When I was writing my book for example, I was focusing on other papers in between chapters. It is funny how I can easily multitask, but writing several projects at the same time doesn’t work for me.
I always try to be early on schedule, and the fact that all my writing goes through a friend of mine who has extensive experience editing, helps a lot, because she needs time to do the proofreading and editing work before I can submit. I admit that writing in English is much more natural to me now than writing in French, and I am glad to see the improvement I have gone through over the past few years, both thanks to my academic writing and my roleplaying hobby.
Tag People!
A while ago, my friend Helka expressed interest in a possible post about books I had on my to purchase and to read list. So, here comes the post, because it took me a while to make the list. This list is a fraction of what I want to read, and doesn’t include any titles that I already possess. The content of my to-read shelf might be material for another post (think Star Wars, The Witcher, Ender’s Game, Book of the Order, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Tolkien, Dragon Age, Mistborn Trilogy if you really want a few hints).
I first thought about making just one list, maybe in alphabetical order. Then I realized that I had books of many kinds/genres and that it would just be too cramped if I went for a single list. Since there was no way I put all the books I wish to purchase, I decided to go for 4 titles in each category. So it gives variety in the snippets I offer of my future dream selves, besides all the busy ones I already have (I still want to share some pictures of my work lair at some point, but I need to actually remember to take the pictures!) The books listed aren’t necessarily my most wanted book for each category either, as I tend to have a hard time establishing hierarchies as such.
Image courtesy of Kookkai_nak / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Star Wars novels
Other novels
Graphic novels
Research/work books
Personal development books (Kindle)
Star Wars art books
Other art books
Happy New Year! Wishing you all a wonderful 2014 filled with joy, good health and success!
Before jumping back into book writing as from tomorrow if all goes according to plan, I decided to finish on my recap posts, as I recently did with books and videos. This time, I want to look at what I achieved in terms of publications in 2013 and what I have to look forward to for 2014 and even 2015.
In 2013, I had three new publications: 1 eBook, 1 article and 1 eBook chapter. The two first were in the USA and the second one in the UK:
I am very excited about the 8 other publications I have upcoming for either 2014 or 2015. Most of them are chapters or articles, but one is my contracted book Women in Science Fiction Television, which is the one upcoming publication I am still in the stage of writing – until I get eventual edits to make in for the other ones, in case editors and publishers request as such. Those upcoming publications will be in the USA, the UK and Canada.
Besides those accepted publications, I am also currently waiting for answers regarding 5 more possible ones. I think that 4 are in the USA and 1 in Taiwan.
Once I am done with completing my book for Scarecrow Press, I am planning to start working more on another book project I would like to tackle next, should I find a publisher. Right now I have 3 or 4 book projects, but this one I’m planning to focus on next is one about Dana Scully from the X-Files.
I’m still surprised of how much writing I am getting done this month, even with the Christmas season and the originally planned break! I didn’t expect to get any new chapter done for my book after November, until January. Here I am halfway done with the second of the month! Sure, they are the shorter chapters in Women in Science Fiction Television, but they’re getting written nonetheless. The chapter I am working on now about Cameron in Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles is taking a slightly different direction from what I originally had in mind, and I think it gives better structure to it and makes it more interesting, especially in light of the other chapters.
In the past while, I also got around to see some movies which came out this year: Riddick, Gravity and Elysium.
To be fair, I never had much of an interest in the Riddick movies but I wanted to see this one because of Katee Sackhoff co-starring in it. To say that it was a painful and boring watch would be an understatement. It was slow, and annoying and even with Katee being awesome as ever, I just disliked that movie a lot. That comforted me in my lack of interest in movies in that universe. I hope that Katee gets to play in better movies in the future.
Gravity was one that made me quite curious since there started to be talks about it. I’m not a big Sandra Bullock fan, but she blew me away in this movie. She did an outstanding job at conveying this woman’s journey and the emotional rendering was impeccable. I loved how the movie really makes you care for the character and worry with her. It was beautifully executed. And it was a treat in term of spatial adventures. I was thrilled to see how they used the space shuttles, ISS, Soyouz, and so on. The only side note I have is that as much as I liked that movie and will watch it again with pleasure, I don’t think it is as revolutionary as some said. I am always happy to see an interesting female character in a central role, but Gravity didn’t feel as a milestone to me either.
Elysium was a movie I expected a bit from, because it looked like a good Science Fiction movie, and I really like Matt Damon and Jodie Foster as actors. I wanted to like the movie, but I was disappointed. I just feel that they could have done so much better, on all accounts, visuals, story, character development. I didn’t feel compelled to really care for the characters as I could have. Everything just felt too predictable (which doesn’t always bother me to be honest) and it just kept going and I was kind of waiting for the end to happen. I think that the one thing that really stood out for me was Jodie Foster’s performance, but that wasn’t surprising, as I really don’t know whether she knows how to act badly.
One thing that also bothered me a lot in Riddick (and to a similar degree in Elysium) was all the swearing. I understand that it makes sense at given points in dialogs (I mean it happened in Gravity and in many movies I like) but I just don’t understand the need to have curse words in a huge portion of dialogs. Maybe I am just old fashioned, but I don’t see what it adds to a movie (or television show, or video game or book). It can have its place at certain times, for certain characters, but I find that swearing is too present in some productions.
Besides those movies, I was happy to see the trailer for How To Train Your Dragon 2 released. I loved the first movie (though wasn’t big on the cartoon made afterwards) and have been waiting for the sequel. The visuals look great as in the first one, the characters seem true to themselves and I still love Toothless to pieces. I can’t wait to see the movie next summer.
I also realized (better late than never) that the official trailer for Pompeii was out. I loved this trailer. I had already been interested in the movie, but after watching the trailer, I am even more eager for it to be released in 2014. The visuals look great and there are many actors I like in it. I enjoy period pieces of many kinds, so this is another aspect of Pompeii that draws me to this movie.
Today was a day for catching up and discussing/brainstorming with friends. In between my other tasks, a recent post from my friend Rose prompted a lengthy conversation with her and also Hannah about topics ranging from reading to remakes, including Terminator and Batman. That reminded me how much I had two projects related to Batman movies, a paper about the Dark Knight Trilogy and an eBook about female characters in all Batman movies. I don’t have time to work on that now, but it gave me a lot of good food for thought. And with all the exchange I had with Rose and Hannah, I have enough material for an actual post some time this month, I think!
I also had the lovely surprise of seeing Helka stopping by to say hello on my blog tonight and I am thrilled to be back in touch with her. I am looking forward to more discussions about research work and lots of Yoko Tsuno ramblings (and fangirling as well). I mentioned it before but I really enjoy how WordPress has become one of my favorite social platforms (along with Twitter as ironic as it might sound). I find it practical to stay in touch and get to discover new people’s work as well.
In between wrapping Christmas presents and other things today, I wrote the introduction for my fifth book chapter, and things are clearer in my mind about how to approach this piece about Cameron in Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, with comparison points with Blade Runner and the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica. I’m going to start the first section of the chapter after I finish this post.
Oh and December 18, 2013 means that we have exactly two years to go before seeing Star Wars Episode VII; and it made me giddy! I am pretty optimistic about it, because having had serious issues with some of the Expanded Universe a few years ago, my politic is that what I don’t like in the Star Wars universe get ignored by my mind. So, I might or might not like the new movies, but more Star Wars is always the opportunity to hope for more goodness!
And just for that, I’m sharing my Star Wars video Heroes again:
I am happy to announce that I have now written 41,000 words out of 80,000 for my upcoming book Women in Science Fiction Television. I am very excited about it, because I am much further than I originally planned to be. I completed a fourth chapter today and already set the detailed structure for a fifth one. This new chapter is about Cameron Philips in Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.
I am glad that I already wrote almost 6,000 words this month, not including blog posts, even when I had originally planned to just take the whole month off. My brain doesn’t do well with more than a few days of break. I’m fine with that because productivity always makes me feel good and with all the projects I have going on, the more I am able to accomplish the better.
On the TV front, I am in the second half of Angel season two and still enjoying the show. I like the dynamic between the characters and I enjoy the bits of humor that happen on a regular basis. I hadn’t expected to laugh that much at times when I started to watch this series. The fact that Angel also gives more information and history about several characters featured in Buffy: The Vampire Slayer still remains one of my favorite aspects of the show.
Lost Girl fourth season is mind blowing. To me, this is really the strongest season of the show, since the second one. I can’t stress enough how awesome this current season is. I have no idea where they’re going to take things or what will be revealed as the episodes go by, but I hope that the show gets renewed at least for a fifth season! This really is one of my all time favorite shows.
As for Once Upon A Time, the mid-season finale impressed me a lot. That show is also a favorite of mine, but this latest episode was stunning. I cried a lot, I laughed and I stared in disbelief at several moments. And my, what a cliffhanger! I can’t wait for March. It seems like an eternity from now! And I will leave you with 3.12 New York City Serenade promo trailer:
Natacha Guyot 