Hanging out with the coolest of peeps all day. No time to bother with blogging. Like seriously, I'm busy. Maybe I'll just...
Sort of...
We ate at Casa Real and that was awesome. We also played Dag and went swimming, both of which were also excellent. There was also attempting to mail things (after post office closed) and attempting to get an oil change (after that place closed) and being a little late for a business (casual) meeting after missing all the traffic lights on the way (okay just most of them).
There was talk about Hearthstead and errand-running, and setting up of tents. It was a busy, busy day of epicosity, and it's not over. So, um... there.
The most important advice I have about writing in your world is to do it. Seriously, make time and write. I know I keep saying I don't take the time for it. I don't. It's bad. Don't be like me. If you want to write in a world do it. It's the only way to get better, and it's the only way to get it done.
There's that.
Ciao.
Saturday, June 30, 2012
Friday, June 29, 2012
What Time is It? AD—House Sitting Time!
I didn't do any better about productive things or coming up with meaningful things to blog about today. But I did get to spend some time alone with my wife, which is a good thing. I like married time. Definitely.
So some friends of mine (inherited through my marriage to Rachael) had a son today, and that's pretty much a super awesome thing, which ties into conversations I had with my wife about parent stuff.
Basically, fatherhood and all the things to do with it are, like, emotional triggers for me. I get all weepy-eyed and blubbery, especially when filial relationships aren't what they should be. I feel all the feeling. There are times when what I feel is all the rage (no, not popular). The one thing that most makes me want to kill people is the thought of abusive fathers/husbands. I just want to hurt those horrid men. Hurt them until they understand.
Emotions are bluh. Let's go eat ice cream.
My family's off to north Michigan (but not the UP) for a couple days and Rachael and I have the house to ourselves for a bit, to clarify my opening paragraph a little. It's been pretty chill. There was Voyager watching, just like old times. I kinda want to finish Voyager so we can start watching new, more different shows.
Also, I caught up on Adventure Time today. It's a good show. It makes me happy. It's also similar levels of weird to Homestuck, without all the ambivalence-producing socially-labelled vulgarities. Part of it is the post-apocalypse. Now that I've seeded your mind with understanding about this, go watch all of the show. Right now.
Then it's not just ridiculous. It's amazing. Like "Oh gosh this is the best thing," amazing.
It's the only show I can think of that can make me flip out over a snail. And boy did I flip out over that snail man.
I'm ruining everything for you, aren't I?
Look, I'm not crazy. Adventure Time is awesome. End of blog post.
... Wait, wh—
So some friends of mine (inherited through my marriage to Rachael) had a son today, and that's pretty much a super awesome thing, which ties into conversations I had with my wife about parent stuff.
Basically, fatherhood and all the things to do with it are, like, emotional triggers for me. I get all weepy-eyed and blubbery, especially when filial relationships aren't what they should be. I feel all the feeling. There are times when what I feel is all the rage (no, not popular). The one thing that most makes me want to kill people is the thought of abusive fathers/husbands. I just want to hurt those horrid men. Hurt them until they understand.
Emotions are bluh. Let's go eat ice cream.
My family's off to north Michigan (but not the UP) for a couple days and Rachael and I have the house to ourselves for a bit, to clarify my opening paragraph a little. It's been pretty chill. There was Voyager watching, just like old times. I kinda want to finish Voyager so we can start watching new, more different shows.
Also, I caught up on Adventure Time today. It's a good show. It makes me happy. It's also similar levels of weird to Homestuck, without all the ambivalence-producing socially-labelled vulgarities. Part of it is the post-apocalypse. Now that I've seeded your mind with understanding about this, go watch all of the show. Right now.
Then it's not just ridiculous. It's amazing. Like "Oh gosh this is the best thing," amazing.
It's the only show I can think of that can make me flip out over a snail. And boy did I flip out over that snail man.
I'm ruining everything for you, aren't I?
Look, I'm not crazy. Adventure Time is awesome. End of blog post.
... Wait, wh—
Thursday, June 28, 2012
Release Dates and Live Readings
Arenanet announced the launch date for Guild Wars 2 today, which is kind of a big deal. I'm excited, because now I can tell people when the game is coming out, instead of saying, "This year." By the way, it comes out August 28.
I've been implying that spending time with loved ones is a blessing and a curse. On one hand, I get to spend time with loved ones, but on the other I have (or take) much less time to work on productive things like writing or job applications. I don't really feel like driving around everywhere picking up and dropping off applications when there's guests around to hang with (and beat in Brawl). This was a particularly strong example of that sort of day.
It happened. I got to that point in Final Fantasy Tactics A2 where you're forced to take on a new clan member even if you don't want to, and it's a unique hero that can't be sent on dispatch or anything. That kind of ruins the game for me, because I like my clan's set up, but I can't leave the continent now because that event's just sitting there. So I guess I'm done with that. Better find something else to do. Like write.
Geez, I'm such a slacker. My eyes, they are rolling.
I did some reading from Ashes of Silver earlier today. Reading a book aloud is exhausting work, especially for someone who uses his voice sparingly in comparison to most people. Unless you have something wet on hand for your whistle, talking through that much prose can get pretty dry in the glottal regions. There's also the wincing I do when my sluggish mouth parts butcher my own painstaking syntax. Plenty of that. Or if I emote something wrong. Or pause in the wrong place. Nope, not a perfectionist.
Maybe part of my voice troubled was that I was also singing along to Emery before and after said book-reading took place. When I sing along to good music, I commit a little.
It's a pitchy mess sometimes, to be honest. I'm not the best singer. Definitely not the worst. Somewhere in the middle, where the amateur musicians reside.
And now I have nothing else to say. It was that sort of day.
-shrugs-
I've been implying that spending time with loved ones is a blessing and a curse. On one hand, I get to spend time with loved ones, but on the other I have (or take) much less time to work on productive things like writing or job applications. I don't really feel like driving around everywhere picking up and dropping off applications when there's guests around to hang with (and beat in Brawl). This was a particularly strong example of that sort of day.
It happened. I got to that point in Final Fantasy Tactics A2 where you're forced to take on a new clan member even if you don't want to, and it's a unique hero that can't be sent on dispatch or anything. That kind of ruins the game for me, because I like my clan's set up, but I can't leave the continent now because that event's just sitting there. So I guess I'm done with that. Better find something else to do. Like write.
Geez, I'm such a slacker. My eyes, they are rolling.
I did some reading from Ashes of Silver earlier today. Reading a book aloud is exhausting work, especially for someone who uses his voice sparingly in comparison to most people. Unless you have something wet on hand for your whistle, talking through that much prose can get pretty dry in the glottal regions. There's also the wincing I do when my sluggish mouth parts butcher my own painstaking syntax. Plenty of that. Or if I emote something wrong. Or pause in the wrong place. Nope, not a perfectionist.
Maybe part of my voice troubled was that I was also singing along to Emery before and after said book-reading took place. When I sing along to good music, I commit a little.
It's a pitchy mess sometimes, to be honest. I'm not the best singer. Definitely not the worst. Somewhere in the middle, where the amateur musicians reside.
And now I have nothing else to say. It was that sort of day.
-shrugs-
Wednesday, June 27, 2012
Flawed
Unless some machine broke the Turing test when I wasn't looking, you are a human being. Regardless, if you're reading and comprehending this—and could have a conversation with me about it later—you are by definition (at least my definition) a person. And as a person, especially as a human being, there is one thing you most certainly are.
Flawed.
This shouldn't be news to you. All people are flawed. I am a clear-cut example of this. My unrestrained tendencies are towards nonsensical, bigoted thought and action, when my actions are social at all. It is only with force of will and, more significantly, the reforging influence of my Heavenly Father that I not a mouldering cesspool of hatred and addiction.
It's inconvenient to be a writer and have a limited perspective, because it is best to tell a story when you know everything that's happening. That's part of the appeal of world-building. You have a greater ability to say with all authority what a miscellaneous character is doing and why than if you're writing in the real world where any reader can tell you, "No. No, someone like that wouldn't do that. Your story sucks."
All the same, I have a limited perspective, and when I am faced with that I find myself stymied. I feel like I have nothing good to say because I don't know everything. That's my perfectionism/fear of making mistakes coming through. Yesterday I went to go exchange a fuel tank for a gas grill, and I started to take the tank inside. Because, you know, I had no idea what I was doing, and for some reason in a situation I've never been in before I have a very hard time taking a moment to think out what the most reasonable thing to do is. It gets harder when I try to take that moment to forcefully realign my scattered cognizance and the people behind the desks are left to stare at me like I'm some crazy person.
Or at least, that's what I feel certain they're doing. In hindsight they were more likely taking a moment to hold conversation with each other to fight against the doldrums of working in a gas station. But in the moment the only thing I can think of is how stupid I look, and I can't figure out a way to stop being stupid and get done what I came to get done. Good thing I had a friend there to tell me what I should do and end the episode before my self-esteem went the way of the emo kid.
Okay, so maybe that last analogy was a bit much.
There is a wise man filling in for my friend over at Culture War Reporters. This morning he posted about the need for us to be exposed to the graphic violence of wars going on outside our social circles, so that we can confront in a more human manner the full horror of war and not treat it like something that has absolutely no bearing on our lives.
"I don't wanna." That's what my heart says. I am repulsed. I don't want to realize the totality of what's going on in the world outside my box of florid prose. Why? Because it scares the hell out of me, that's why. No, I couldn't have put it milder without failing to get the point across. I could give other reasons, too, but those are excuses.
There's nothing I can do, short of going over myself as a soldier. And I will never do that. I'm describing my visceral reaction, because I don't have a higher argument against service in military. I don't want to believe wars exist. I don't want to feel it in the depths of my soul, that place I so strive to keep quiet.
It's more complicated than that, because I believe "there will always be wars and rumors of wars." Something fundamental about the universe needs to change before men and women will stop killing each other en masse. I guess it's sort of ironic that a lot of people who think overpopulation is a major problem also completely detest war, because that's one good way to cull the population.
You see that? That drivel? That's the terrified spewing of a man who doesn't know what to think in the face of travesty.
And that man is me.
Now, I usually keep all that bottled up and deal with it on my own time, in the privacy of my own inner space, but I wanted to demonstrate the sort of stuff that goes on in my head before I handle it and exert my intellect on all that gross feelings stuff, so that you can know what I mean when I say I'm confronted by my personhood and feel like I don't have anything valuable to say.
Because that guy up there? He's kinda my least favorite person.
So in short, some people are writing challenging things on their blogs, and I applaud my friend for his wise words. As for myself, I'm just writing about what's challenging me today. I don't really have much advice about writing or world-building today, other than to keep in mind that you, too, are a person, and your worldview is limited because you're human.
Flawed.
This shouldn't be news to you. All people are flawed. I am a clear-cut example of this. My unrestrained tendencies are towards nonsensical, bigoted thought and action, when my actions are social at all. It is only with force of will and, more significantly, the reforging influence of my Heavenly Father that I not a mouldering cesspool of hatred and addiction.
It's inconvenient to be a writer and have a limited perspective, because it is best to tell a story when you know everything that's happening. That's part of the appeal of world-building. You have a greater ability to say with all authority what a miscellaneous character is doing and why than if you're writing in the real world where any reader can tell you, "No. No, someone like that wouldn't do that. Your story sucks."
All the same, I have a limited perspective, and when I am faced with that I find myself stymied. I feel like I have nothing good to say because I don't know everything. That's my perfectionism/fear of making mistakes coming through. Yesterday I went to go exchange a fuel tank for a gas grill, and I started to take the tank inside. Because, you know, I had no idea what I was doing, and for some reason in a situation I've never been in before I have a very hard time taking a moment to think out what the most reasonable thing to do is. It gets harder when I try to take that moment to forcefully realign my scattered cognizance and the people behind the desks are left to stare at me like I'm some crazy person.
Or at least, that's what I feel certain they're doing. In hindsight they were more likely taking a moment to hold conversation with each other to fight against the doldrums of working in a gas station. But in the moment the only thing I can think of is how stupid I look, and I can't figure out a way to stop being stupid and get done what I came to get done. Good thing I had a friend there to tell me what I should do and end the episode before my self-esteem went the way of the emo kid.
Okay, so maybe that last analogy was a bit much.
There is a wise man filling in for my friend over at Culture War Reporters. This morning he posted about the need for us to be exposed to the graphic violence of wars going on outside our social circles, so that we can confront in a more human manner the full horror of war and not treat it like something that has absolutely no bearing on our lives.
"I don't wanna." That's what my heart says. I am repulsed. I don't want to realize the totality of what's going on in the world outside my box of florid prose. Why? Because it scares the hell out of me, that's why. No, I couldn't have put it milder without failing to get the point across. I could give other reasons, too, but those are excuses.
There's nothing I can do, short of going over myself as a soldier. And I will never do that. I'm describing my visceral reaction, because I don't have a higher argument against service in military. I don't want to believe wars exist. I don't want to feel it in the depths of my soul, that place I so strive to keep quiet.
It's more complicated than that, because I believe "there will always be wars and rumors of wars." Something fundamental about the universe needs to change before men and women will stop killing each other en masse. I guess it's sort of ironic that a lot of people who think overpopulation is a major problem also completely detest war, because that's one good way to cull the population.
You see that? That drivel? That's the terrified spewing of a man who doesn't know what to think in the face of travesty.
And that man is me.
Now, I usually keep all that bottled up and deal with it on my own time, in the privacy of my own inner space, but I wanted to demonstrate the sort of stuff that goes on in my head before I handle it and exert my intellect on all that gross feelings stuff, so that you can know what I mean when I say I'm confronted by my personhood and feel like I don't have anything valuable to say.
Because that guy up there? He's kinda my least favorite person.
So in short, some people are writing challenging things on their blogs, and I applaud my friend for his wise words. As for myself, I'm just writing about what's challenging me today. I don't really have much advice about writing or world-building today, other than to keep in mind that you, too, are a person, and your worldview is limited because you're human.
Tuesday, June 26, 2012
Fantasy and the Weird
You know, for a shy person who doesn't like to step on toes, it's really hard to just be like, "Hey, I'm gonna go disappear and do productive things for a while. Don't bug me." Especially in a house that doesn't really have a separate place for me to work.
I need to not complain. Don't complain. So I'm just observing. And trying to think of a way to do what I need to do.
Homestuck continues to be a thing. A crazy thing. It and Adventure Time are my cartoony indulgences. Legend of Korra is not an indulgence. It is a necessity.
I think one of the coolest ideas for creating a world is to play with video game motifs. It's something that Homestuck does, and most video games (obviously). There are quite a few other stories that I can't think of at the moment, and plenty of webcomics that don't have an overarching plot, all of which mess around with video game (and other pop culture) motifs in building the world of their story. Scott Pilgrim is another good example of this.
Themed worlds are definitely easier to create than wholly new ones. And "wholly new ones" are probably impossible. But what I mean is it's easier to say, "This story is set in the Prohibition Era U.S." and present a world that a lot of people will recognize. It's not as easy to develop the epic sweeps of the history of Arda. Honestly, one of the most interesting aspects of the Inheritance Cycle was Paolini's experiment in world-building. He used a lot of the trappings of stereotypical fantasy (men, elves, dwarves, and dragons) but he worked hard to make it his own.
Honestly, and it's taken me a while to realize this about myself, I prefer my worlds a little weirder. Doctor Who's version of reality is very engaging partly because it doesn't take itself seriously. Worlds you can laugh in make the moments of sorrow that much more poignant. Which reminds me of Up. Goodness, that movie is brilliant. I won't even get started on that, though. The Avatar world (again, the Asian-themed cartoon world and not the giant-blue-tentacle-people world) has hilarious things like platypus-bears and the recurring tragedy of a man and his cabbages, but their existence only heightens the feeling when we learn about an important piece of Iroh's past, or see a pair of brothers doomed by the upbringing their father gave them.
And Homestuck is definitely weird. It's like Hussie dropped in the Weird-brew teabag and just left it there in the piping water until the ratio of Weird to water made the tea into a non-Newtonian fluid. Wibbly wobbly, timey wimey Weird tea. That's what Homestuck is.
And that's why I love it.
Now, some people can't take that seriously. The irony of that statement is fully intentional, yes. What I mean is that some people lose all their disbelief suspension and miss out on the ride because it's just too weird. But I was never nearly normal enough to get along with people who like their world always straight vanilla. Sometimes you just need to have some bacon ice-cream and get over it.
There's a smaller version of a dragonfly, and some wise guy/gal named it the damselfly. That's an official thing. That's the kind of world we live in. We name bugs after medieval mythology.
There's a beetle out there somewhere that, as far as I know, can haul around a banana that's way bigger than it is. Ants can lift things 100 times their weight. If fleas were human-sized, they could jump football fields. In the depths of our ocean, the wildlife glows, and the invertebrates down there are more mind-blowing to watch than a model of a four-dimensional object.
Our world flipped the lid off the can of weird before we came up with the semantic concept that weird corresponds too. Also, we're capable of exploring semantic concepts that could never occur, and live in those mental spaces fairly comfortably without going entirely insane. Most of the time. There was never a Zeus, God of the Sky, man, but we sure as heck know about the stuff he did.
I guess what this Weird tangent was about is that we all need to settle down and non sequitur all over everything once in a while. It's more honest.
Also, people like me need to drag our heads down out of the clouds every so often and do some manual labor so we can know this world we're living in isn't just made out of semantic space just because that's how we can (kind of) comprehend it. There's stuff to it. And it happens. It keeps hapening. You gotta eat something that's alive (or once was) in order to live. Dog my cats, but that kinda sucks, doesn't it? All it takes is a gulp of something suitably not air to cut off our respiration, and we go out like a light.
I'm gonna stop there before I get too morbid. I guess that's the kind of stuff I think about, and I bring it all back to stories because I'm wired that way. This was all another defense of fantasy as a storytelling medium, I guess. Or something. I don't even know.
I'm still thinking about that deep sea jellyfish.
I need to not complain. Don't complain. So I'm just observing. And trying to think of a way to do what I need to do.
Homestuck continues to be a thing. A crazy thing. It and Adventure Time are my cartoony indulgences. Legend of Korra is not an indulgence. It is a necessity.
I think one of the coolest ideas for creating a world is to play with video game motifs. It's something that Homestuck does, and most video games (obviously). There are quite a few other stories that I can't think of at the moment, and plenty of webcomics that don't have an overarching plot, all of which mess around with video game (and other pop culture) motifs in building the world of their story. Scott Pilgrim is another good example of this.
Themed worlds are definitely easier to create than wholly new ones. And "wholly new ones" are probably impossible. But what I mean is it's easier to say, "This story is set in the Prohibition Era U.S." and present a world that a lot of people will recognize. It's not as easy to develop the epic sweeps of the history of Arda. Honestly, one of the most interesting aspects of the Inheritance Cycle was Paolini's experiment in world-building. He used a lot of the trappings of stereotypical fantasy (men, elves, dwarves, and dragons) but he worked hard to make it his own.
Honestly, and it's taken me a while to realize this about myself, I prefer my worlds a little weirder. Doctor Who's version of reality is very engaging partly because it doesn't take itself seriously. Worlds you can laugh in make the moments of sorrow that much more poignant. Which reminds me of Up. Goodness, that movie is brilliant. I won't even get started on that, though. The Avatar world (again, the Asian-themed cartoon world and not the giant-blue-tentacle-people world) has hilarious things like platypus-bears and the recurring tragedy of a man and his cabbages, but their existence only heightens the feeling when we learn about an important piece of Iroh's past, or see a pair of brothers doomed by the upbringing their father gave them.
And Homestuck is definitely weird. It's like Hussie dropped in the Weird-brew teabag and just left it there in the piping water until the ratio of Weird to water made the tea into a non-Newtonian fluid. Wibbly wobbly, timey wimey Weird tea. That's what Homestuck is.
And that's why I love it.
Now, some people can't take that seriously. The irony of that statement is fully intentional, yes. What I mean is that some people lose all their disbelief suspension and miss out on the ride because it's just too weird. But I was never nearly normal enough to get along with people who like their world always straight vanilla. Sometimes you just need to have some bacon ice-cream and get over it.
There's a smaller version of a dragonfly, and some wise guy/gal named it the damselfly. That's an official thing. That's the kind of world we live in. We name bugs after medieval mythology.
There's a beetle out there somewhere that, as far as I know, can haul around a banana that's way bigger than it is. Ants can lift things 100 times their weight. If fleas were human-sized, they could jump football fields. In the depths of our ocean, the wildlife glows, and the invertebrates down there are more mind-blowing to watch than a model of a four-dimensional object.
Our world flipped the lid off the can of weird before we came up with the semantic concept that weird corresponds too. Also, we're capable of exploring semantic concepts that could never occur, and live in those mental spaces fairly comfortably without going entirely insane. Most of the time. There was never a Zeus, God of the Sky, man, but we sure as heck know about the stuff he did.
I guess what this Weird tangent was about is that we all need to settle down and non sequitur all over everything once in a while. It's more honest.
Also, people like me need to drag our heads down out of the clouds every so often and do some manual labor so we can know this world we're living in isn't just made out of semantic space just because that's how we can (kind of) comprehend it. There's stuff to it. And it happens. It keeps hapening. You gotta eat something that's alive (or once was) in order to live. Dog my cats, but that kinda sucks, doesn't it? All it takes is a gulp of something suitably not air to cut off our respiration, and we go out like a light.
I'm gonna stop there before I get too morbid. I guess that's the kind of stuff I think about, and I bring it all back to stories because I'm wired that way. This was all another defense of fantasy as a storytelling medium, I guess. Or something. I don't even know.
I'm still thinking about that deep sea jellyfish.
Monday, June 25, 2012
Religion and World-building
When you're creating characters of a different religious philosophy than your own, my best advice is to avoid stereotypes like the Contagion. And yes, you'll have to read Ashes of Silver to understand that reference.
Here are some examples to illustrate what I'm talking about. The Believer Who Never Asks Questions. The "Believer" Who Grasps for Power. The Ultra-skeptical Non-believer. The Non-believer Hero Because Heroes Aren't Stupid Enough to Believe.
You may notice that there are people in this life who absolutely fit into the schema presented by those stereotypes. I don't care. Reality holds more straw men than fiction is permitted. I'm also not saying that you can't have a believer with a strong faith or a non-believer who feels strongly about his unbelief. It's just that you need to be very careful when deciding what a character believes or you can end up with a flat, uninteresting character really fast.
Here's something I've observed. You can call Boopy Shenanigans if you want, but here it is: readers get bored really fast with characters who one-note on the opposite line of what they believe. For atheists/agnostics, that means characters who grapple with real faith issues can get dull because they perceive these struggles as a meaningless facade, and vice versa for people who are (relatively) sure of what they believe. It's even possible for people in the middle (not willing to discount the supernatural, but not willing to jump off the fence) to lose interest in anything not thoroughly steeped in gray.
Like I said, I could be wrong about this observation. It also makes writing really difficult, because I would like for my audience to be a bit more general than "Christians interested in reading Christian fantasy fiction." Because that means the only people who read my books will be the ones who specifically go looking for them, because the books sure as Tartarus won't be found in a secular book store like Barnes and Noble. At least not in the same section as all the other fantasy.
Another reason I don't want to go down that road is because not everything I write is going to have overtly Christian subject matter. For example, Ashes of Silver's universe doesn't necessarily have a God (at least not one that the people of Hearthstead are aware of) so the subject of service to Him is kind of a non-issue. That could be an issue if I let it be, but the world of Hearthstead wasn't exactly set up to tackle those sorts of questions. My cousin and I have always been a little too light-hearted about Hearthstead to delve into a theological mire in a world created originally as a stick-figure comic.
I want as many people as possible to read my work. Honestly, the money that would come from that is secondary or tertiary for me. What I want is the discussions. The "that was awesome!" and "this made me sad." I want to see people invested in the stories I tell. So that may be why I hesitate to launch into heavily theological themes in my writing. I want to be able to handle it in a way that keeps even staunch atheists invested in the story.
You may have noticed by now that I want to be able to have my cake and eat it too, then maybe have some pie afterwards. I certainly don't make things easy on myself.
So you can ignore my advice about the religiosity of your characters if you want. I think I originally intended it for a different purpose. Namely, that if you are an atheist you shouldn't make believer-characters in such a way as to make them easy targets for an agenda, and the same goes for believers and characters who don't believe the same. In my own writing life that means I tend to leave atheist characters less explored than I might, because I want to avoid characterizing them in a way that's inaccurate and two-dimensional.
When you're creating a world, it's also important to keep matters of theology in mind, even if that's to explicitly exclude an all-powerful deity from having created the universe. It's fiction, and you can do that. Especially if it's fantasy, because then you can explore what a world would really be like without God or followers of Him. You can also leave the question as open-ended as it is in reality, with great debates going about it. You can skip out on the wars. That would be nice, but unlikely if your people are anything remotely like humans. Then there will be war, whether it's over God or cheese. Sorry, but that's the cold hard truth.
The more time you invest into the metaphysical makeup of your fictional world, the better-sorted those issues are likely to be. That's a prediction, not a fact, by the way. But it stands to reason that since preparation rules in the rest of world-building, it should here too.
Well, that's all I've got this morning. I've been typing without contacts in long enough, and there's only so much of that to be stomached before I start punching faces that aren't my own.
Ciao.
Here are some examples to illustrate what I'm talking about. The Believer Who Never Asks Questions. The "Believer" Who Grasps for Power. The Ultra-skeptical Non-believer. The Non-believer Hero Because Heroes Aren't Stupid Enough to Believe.
You may notice that there are people in this life who absolutely fit into the schema presented by those stereotypes. I don't care. Reality holds more straw men than fiction is permitted. I'm also not saying that you can't have a believer with a strong faith or a non-believer who feels strongly about his unbelief. It's just that you need to be very careful when deciding what a character believes or you can end up with a flat, uninteresting character really fast.
Here's something I've observed. You can call Boopy Shenanigans if you want, but here it is: readers get bored really fast with characters who one-note on the opposite line of what they believe. For atheists/agnostics, that means characters who grapple with real faith issues can get dull because they perceive these struggles as a meaningless facade, and vice versa for people who are (relatively) sure of what they believe. It's even possible for people in the middle (not willing to discount the supernatural, but not willing to jump off the fence) to lose interest in anything not thoroughly steeped in gray.
Like I said, I could be wrong about this observation. It also makes writing really difficult, because I would like for my audience to be a bit more general than "Christians interested in reading Christian fantasy fiction." Because that means the only people who read my books will be the ones who specifically go looking for them, because the books sure as Tartarus won't be found in a secular book store like Barnes and Noble. At least not in the same section as all the other fantasy.
Another reason I don't want to go down that road is because not everything I write is going to have overtly Christian subject matter. For example, Ashes of Silver's universe doesn't necessarily have a God (at least not one that the people of Hearthstead are aware of) so the subject of service to Him is kind of a non-issue. That could be an issue if I let it be, but the world of Hearthstead wasn't exactly set up to tackle those sorts of questions. My cousin and I have always been a little too light-hearted about Hearthstead to delve into a theological mire in a world created originally as a stick-figure comic.
I want as many people as possible to read my work. Honestly, the money that would come from that is secondary or tertiary for me. What I want is the discussions. The "that was awesome!" and "this made me sad." I want to see people invested in the stories I tell. So that may be why I hesitate to launch into heavily theological themes in my writing. I want to be able to handle it in a way that keeps even staunch atheists invested in the story.
You may have noticed by now that I want to be able to have my cake and eat it too, then maybe have some pie afterwards. I certainly don't make things easy on myself.
So you can ignore my advice about the religiosity of your characters if you want. I think I originally intended it for a different purpose. Namely, that if you are an atheist you shouldn't make believer-characters in such a way as to make them easy targets for an agenda, and the same goes for believers and characters who don't believe the same. In my own writing life that means I tend to leave atheist characters less explored than I might, because I want to avoid characterizing them in a way that's inaccurate and two-dimensional.
When you're creating a world, it's also important to keep matters of theology in mind, even if that's to explicitly exclude an all-powerful deity from having created the universe. It's fiction, and you can do that. Especially if it's fantasy, because then you can explore what a world would really be like without God or followers of Him. You can also leave the question as open-ended as it is in reality, with great debates going about it. You can skip out on the wars. That would be nice, but unlikely if your people are anything remotely like humans. Then there will be war, whether it's over God or cheese. Sorry, but that's the cold hard truth.
The more time you invest into the metaphysical makeup of your fictional world, the better-sorted those issues are likely to be. That's a prediction, not a fact, by the way. But it stands to reason that since preparation rules in the rest of world-building, it should here too.
Well, that's all I've got this morning. I've been typing without contacts in long enough, and there's only so much of that to be stomached before I start punching faces that aren't my own.
Ciao.
Sunday, June 24, 2012
The Wire (Getting Down to It)
Pushin' it. At this point, maybe I should just take the punch to the face. It's almost as shameful as not saying very much at all in my blog.
There was mini-golf, and church, and naps. It was a good day.
The pastor's topic today involved not complaining, which gives me some conviction to try to wheedle that out of my life. Many of my problems relate back to my attitude about things, at least in my own mind. It's a hard thing to try to change. Sometimes I realize I've got to give it over into Someone Else's hands.
I'm thinking tomorrow I'll have some stuff to say about something interesting, like writing. If I can stop being a slough-faced bum who wants to spend quality time with his family, that is.
Anyway, that's everything tonight. Ciao.
There was mini-golf, and church, and naps. It was a good day.
The pastor's topic today involved not complaining, which gives me some conviction to try to wheedle that out of my life. Many of my problems relate back to my attitude about things, at least in my own mind. It's a hard thing to try to change. Sometimes I realize I've got to give it over into Someone Else's hands.
I'm thinking tomorrow I'll have some stuff to say about something interesting, like writing. If I can stop being a slough-faced bum who wants to spend quality time with his family, that is.
Anyway, that's everything tonight. Ciao.
Saturday, June 23, 2012
Camper Pies and Tangents
We cooked out today. It was awesome. And delicious. If you've never had camper pie, you're missing out. Go buy an iron, a loaf of bread, and pizza-making stuff, then start a fire and do things. Delicious things.
We also watched the season finale of Legend of Korra. It was excellent. If you haven't watched that show, watch it. All of it. It's only about twelve episodes. It gave me emotions.
Not that I didn't have emotions before, but I felt things because of it.
I seem to run out of time a lot lately. That and inspiration. And it's hard to force it when there's people over and I'm spending time with them.
I have a father and an uncle who are pretty good at the piano, and we have a grand piano sitting in the main room of the house. It gets all jazzy and/or classical up in here pretty much every day. That is a beautiful thing. If you don't have a grand piano sitting in your living room (for us it's the "music room") then I am sorry. You're missing out.
Talking about that makes me think about the sort of place I'd like to have when I have one of my own. An office would be nice. Someplace I can go that tells people automatically that I'm unavailable, which also separates me from the sights and sounds. If I had to do my music stuff in there too that'd be all right. Part of my problem is that when I get access to an office, I need to train myself to use it properly.
What do "normal people" prefer for their living spaces these days? What would you like to have? Is wanting stuff from your space an entitled outlook? I mean, if I had everything stripped away from me, would it be reasonable at all to want an office?
That brings me back to a question I think about a lot. It's ironic that I'm talking about this on a blog going out on the internet on my expensive computing device, but there's this thing about society that I have. I don't like it. I mean, I like my conveniences, but there are a lot of things about the way we Westerners live our lives that really bother me.
Culture, man.
But I'll refrain from my rant about it and get down to my trouble. I'm a writer, and the writing I'm trained in involves keyboards and pixels, rather than ink and quills, or verse to help me (and my listeners) remember it. My education could potentially mean nothing in a world thrown back many years. Also, the subject material I like to dig into—fantasy, primarily—would possibly be meaningless to the people at that point.
When I think about that, it makes me think I should spend more time trying to tell stories I've experienced directly, so I can relate to more than just my fellow geeks. I don't even relate to the geeks all that well sometimes, because I stubbornly refuse to take part in some of the culture.
People are very, very complicated. We're real. Even the fakers. And there's so many of us, too. Like, billions. We don't even all speak the same language. It'd take a set of brains very differently wired to have seven billion people who were all capable of speaking the same language.
Have I ever talked on here about how fascinating language is? Humans are wired for language, uniquely. You have to go out of your way to keep a person from learning to speak a language. It's a connection thing. Oh yeah, I have ranted about this, haven't I?
It's the whole language thing that keeps me from despairing of my career choice. I just have to try to keep on top of things. Easier said than done.
Idioms man. They're the thing.
I keep waffling, here. I could start going on and on about things I'm interested in, or I could say a couple things and call it good. What I ought to do is think of a subject beforehand to talk about.
Psh! What? Premeditation?
Whatever.
We also watched the season finale of Legend of Korra. It was excellent. If you haven't watched that show, watch it. All of it. It's only about twelve episodes. It gave me emotions.
Not that I didn't have emotions before, but I felt things because of it.
I seem to run out of time a lot lately. That and inspiration. And it's hard to force it when there's people over and I'm spending time with them.
I have a father and an uncle who are pretty good at the piano, and we have a grand piano sitting in the main room of the house. It gets all jazzy and/or classical up in here pretty much every day. That is a beautiful thing. If you don't have a grand piano sitting in your living room (for us it's the "music room") then I am sorry. You're missing out.
Talking about that makes me think about the sort of place I'd like to have when I have one of my own. An office would be nice. Someplace I can go that tells people automatically that I'm unavailable, which also separates me from the sights and sounds. If I had to do my music stuff in there too that'd be all right. Part of my problem is that when I get access to an office, I need to train myself to use it properly.
What do "normal people" prefer for their living spaces these days? What would you like to have? Is wanting stuff from your space an entitled outlook? I mean, if I had everything stripped away from me, would it be reasonable at all to want an office?
That brings me back to a question I think about a lot. It's ironic that I'm talking about this on a blog going out on the internet on my expensive computing device, but there's this thing about society that I have. I don't like it. I mean, I like my conveniences, but there are a lot of things about the way we Westerners live our lives that really bother me.
Culture, man.
But I'll refrain from my rant about it and get down to my trouble. I'm a writer, and the writing I'm trained in involves keyboards and pixels, rather than ink and quills, or verse to help me (and my listeners) remember it. My education could potentially mean nothing in a world thrown back many years. Also, the subject material I like to dig into—fantasy, primarily—would possibly be meaningless to the people at that point.
When I think about that, it makes me think I should spend more time trying to tell stories I've experienced directly, so I can relate to more than just my fellow geeks. I don't even relate to the geeks all that well sometimes, because I stubbornly refuse to take part in some of the culture.
People are very, very complicated. We're real. Even the fakers. And there's so many of us, too. Like, billions. We don't even all speak the same language. It'd take a set of brains very differently wired to have seven billion people who were all capable of speaking the same language.
Have I ever talked on here about how fascinating language is? Humans are wired for language, uniquely. You have to go out of your way to keep a person from learning to speak a language. It's a connection thing. Oh yeah, I have ranted about this, haven't I?
It's the whole language thing that keeps me from despairing of my career choice. I just have to try to keep on top of things. Easier said than done.
Idioms man. They're the thing.
I keep waffling, here. I could start going on and on about things I'm interested in, or I could say a couple things and call it good. What I ought to do is think of a subject beforehand to talk about.
Psh! What? Premeditation?
Whatever.
Friday, June 22, 2012
Don't Try Too Hard to Change Your Fate, You Might Pull Something
I just got back from watching Brave. I didn't enjoy it as much as I did the Avengers, but I thought it was quite a good movie. I won't spoil it for people who haven't seen it because, well, it's been in theaters for a day. You should see it, because it's a Pixar movie and it's beautiful. There were parts in the beginning that almost set the waterworks flowing just because of how beautiful the world was. Ugh.
Last night I stayed up till after one in the morning, mostly writing something I won't talk about yet because it's fun to be mysterious sometimes. If I start talking about it now you won't be able to get your hands on it for at least six months, and I don't wanna cause that kind of itching.
Instead, I'll report my increasing difficulty with creating the space required to finish Talas Ke. I gotta get in the zone, and getting in the zone is difficult when I allow myself to be distractible. The solution, of course, is to not be distractible. We'll see how that goes.
The copies of Ashes of Silver I ordered a couple days ago have arrived, which means that I can start shipping them out to those special cases. Once again, if you haven't ordered a copy and you want one—further, if you want it signed—get in contact with me and we'll work it out.
I think soon I might set up a new e-mail account exclusively for business related to book stuff. Again, we'll see how that goes. If I do that, I will definitely post it up here on the blog.
That's really all there is to say about today. At least for now. Have a good night, and go see Brave soon.
Ciao.
Last night I stayed up till after one in the morning, mostly writing something I won't talk about yet because it's fun to be mysterious sometimes. If I start talking about it now you won't be able to get your hands on it for at least six months, and I don't wanna cause that kind of itching.
Instead, I'll report my increasing difficulty with creating the space required to finish Talas Ke. I gotta get in the zone, and getting in the zone is difficult when I allow myself to be distractible. The solution, of course, is to not be distractible. We'll see how that goes.
The copies of Ashes of Silver I ordered a couple days ago have arrived, which means that I can start shipping them out to those special cases. Once again, if you haven't ordered a copy and you want one—further, if you want it signed—get in contact with me and we'll work it out.
I think soon I might set up a new e-mail account exclusively for business related to book stuff. Again, we'll see how that goes. If I do that, I will definitely post it up here on the blog.
That's really all there is to say about today. At least for now. Have a good night, and go see Brave soon.
Ciao.
Thursday, June 21, 2012
It's a Ramble
Okay, forget what I said yesterday. Problem Sleuth was awesome. And comparatively short when sized up with Homestuck. In some ways it seemed even more game-like than Homestuck, in that there are bosses with health meters and everything. A lot. To go along with that, I will say once more that I think I understand a lot more references (in-jokes) in Homestuck than I did before.
I find myself wanting to work in a world, which is a good thing. It's only that I already spent a lot of time being anti-social today (see reading most of Problem Sleuth), so I don't think I should lock myself away and start writing. So maybe I'll boot up my tablet and try to work on some comic-style Hearthstead stuff. That'll be fun?
Is it a trapping of my generation to want to nerd/fanboy out frequently? This question came out of nowhere (ish) just now, and is totally not premeditated. But I'm in earnest. I mean, people got obsessed before the 90's obviously, but was there ever so much story, and so much esteem for the "awesome," that one could make partaking of the storm of stories their lifelong occupation and only really tap the surface? How does one judge the value of a story? What does "unique" mean in light of it?
There is a certain kind of consumer whom I cannot understand. It is the person who can only just stand fiction, so by extension finds any sort of story that stretches the fabric of reality, or of "society," or anything else short of strict realism to be childish and inane, and worth nothing but dismissal as so much dross. This sort of person exists, and I do not know that—one such individual being revealed to me—we could ever have useful dialogue together. The rigors of science, the cold brutal reality of reality, these bore me. And honestly I have to check my apathy about the stories of the real world because actual life is more important than the stuff I make up to amuse myself. But it's easier to generalize about life and the real world and retreat to somewhere else a little less painful.
That's the other thing. When realistic fiction doesn't bore me and actually succeeds in impelling emotion, it's a rush of depressing truth.
For a Christian, I'm kind of a downer. But yeah, I'm not exactly in a season where I particularly feel like anyone's listening to messages about the savior of this world we made terrible. That bears thinking about, when I'm not busy thinking about my writing, or trying to figure out how to get a job, or what not.
Yeah, I need a paradigm shift.
Speaking of, what happened to that band from my high school? Did they all break up and become atheists or something? I mean, it was kind of a cool band. There was a song about Gollum and wanting/needing the Precious. Wow I'm apparently not in the best mood today. Sorry about that, I guess.
Naps are good things. There seem to be cycles. You see, little kids take them until they're not little anymore, then they start doing them again when puberty hits, and then stop during the age when they never sleep (mid-adolescence), then once you're an adult you start loving to take them again. Or at least that's my experience/observation.
I wish there were things like Kickstarters to have reading funds. Because, you know, I don't really have a disposable income (let alone disposable time) to read all the things I want to read.
That disposable income thing means I need a job.
Job. Job. Job.
Job job.
Jobbery boj.
Okay, um...
Good night.
I find myself wanting to work in a world, which is a good thing. It's only that I already spent a lot of time being anti-social today (see reading most of Problem Sleuth), so I don't think I should lock myself away and start writing. So maybe I'll boot up my tablet and try to work on some comic-style Hearthstead stuff. That'll be fun?
Is it a trapping of my generation to want to nerd/fanboy out frequently? This question came out of nowhere (ish) just now, and is totally not premeditated. But I'm in earnest. I mean, people got obsessed before the 90's obviously, but was there ever so much story, and so much esteem for the "awesome," that one could make partaking of the storm of stories their lifelong occupation and only really tap the surface? How does one judge the value of a story? What does "unique" mean in light of it?
There is a certain kind of consumer whom I cannot understand. It is the person who can only just stand fiction, so by extension finds any sort of story that stretches the fabric of reality, or of "society," or anything else short of strict realism to be childish and inane, and worth nothing but dismissal as so much dross. This sort of person exists, and I do not know that—one such individual being revealed to me—we could ever have useful dialogue together. The rigors of science, the cold brutal reality of reality, these bore me. And honestly I have to check my apathy about the stories of the real world because actual life is more important than the stuff I make up to amuse myself. But it's easier to generalize about life and the real world and retreat to somewhere else a little less painful.
That's the other thing. When realistic fiction doesn't bore me and actually succeeds in impelling emotion, it's a rush of depressing truth.
For a Christian, I'm kind of a downer. But yeah, I'm not exactly in a season where I particularly feel like anyone's listening to messages about the savior of this world we made terrible. That bears thinking about, when I'm not busy thinking about my writing, or trying to figure out how to get a job, or what not.
Yeah, I need a paradigm shift.
Speaking of, what happened to that band from my high school? Did they all break up and become atheists or something? I mean, it was kind of a cool band. There was a song about Gollum and wanting/needing the Precious. Wow I'm apparently not in the best mood today. Sorry about that, I guess.
Naps are good things. There seem to be cycles. You see, little kids take them until they're not little anymore, then they start doing them again when puberty hits, and then stop during the age when they never sleep (mid-adolescence), then once you're an adult you start loving to take them again. Or at least that's my experience/observation.
I wish there were things like Kickstarters to have reading funds. Because, you know, I don't really have a disposable income (let alone disposable time) to read all the things I want to read.
That disposable income thing means I need a job.
Job. Job. Job.
Job job.
Jobbery boj.
Okay, um...
Good night.
Wednesday, June 20, 2012
The Cultural Paradox of Old Books (Or Why is Everything So Complicated?)
I honestly don't know why John Carter didn't do well in theaters. Was it not close enough to the books? Because there were definitely parts with strong emotional resonance, and I thought for one thing, that the way they dealt with accents was better than normal for a movie of this kind. It was entertaining. I liked it. There.
Also, it had the kid from Spy Kids in it as Edgar Rice Burroughs. So that's... I dunno... weird?
I started "reading" Problem Sleuth, a predecessor to Homestuck, but I don't like it as much as I like Homestuck. The references though, I understand so many more of them already.
I'm still reading Self-raised, a book published in 1876. It's still kind of like an American Dickens novel. I just want to finish reading it.
Also, there is prudery. So prude as to be an affront for folks of this day and age who can't stand wholesomeness. Like, the people in that book are so proper, and so careful in evading impropriety, that I'm certain some people will find it offensive.
There's also stuff involving black servants that's unfortunately typical of the era. They aren't slaves, but they are happy to subordinate themselves to the white protagonists of the book. It's kind of a problematic thing, but it would also be hard to depict them as people in the same social and financial standing as the upper crust (the main characters include a member of the Supreme Court, British nobility, and a highly successful member of the Washington bar). I am disappointed with the author for this depiction, but I'm not as disappointed as if this book was written later than a decade after the abolition of slavery in America.
It's such a strange mix, all that propriety and the treatment of people. Nowadays we can say that people are people (with the exception of the unborn, apparently), and everyone pretty much agrees. I should point out though that the villains of the story are punished because they treat the servants more like objects and less like human beings, and that the protagonists actually tend to treat them more like people than the servants themselves do.
In the previous book, there were poor white people with less social standing than black servants, which is an actual thing that happened in our history. So is the question more one of class than race?
Ugh, cultural stuff hurts to think about.
Do it anyway. I will too.
There. There's like, social responsibility going on in this blog a little bit. Or something.
-shrugs-
Also, it had the kid from Spy Kids in it as Edgar Rice Burroughs. So that's... I dunno... weird?
I started "reading" Problem Sleuth, a predecessor to Homestuck, but I don't like it as much as I like Homestuck. The references though, I understand so many more of them already.
I'm still reading Self-raised, a book published in 1876. It's still kind of like an American Dickens novel. I just want to finish reading it.
Also, there is prudery. So prude as to be an affront for folks of this day and age who can't stand wholesomeness. Like, the people in that book are so proper, and so careful in evading impropriety, that I'm certain some people will find it offensive.
There's also stuff involving black servants that's unfortunately typical of the era. They aren't slaves, but they are happy to subordinate themselves to the white protagonists of the book. It's kind of a problematic thing, but it would also be hard to depict them as people in the same social and financial standing as the upper crust (the main characters include a member of the Supreme Court, British nobility, and a highly successful member of the Washington bar). I am disappointed with the author for this depiction, but I'm not as disappointed as if this book was written later than a decade after the abolition of slavery in America.
It's such a strange mix, all that propriety and the treatment of people. Nowadays we can say that people are people (with the exception of the unborn, apparently), and everyone pretty much agrees. I should point out though that the villains of the story are punished because they treat the servants more like objects and less like human beings, and that the protagonists actually tend to treat them more like people than the servants themselves do.
In the previous book, there were poor white people with less social standing than black servants, which is an actual thing that happened in our history. So is the question more one of class than race?
Ugh, cultural stuff hurts to think about.
Do it anyway. I will too.
There. There's like, social responsibility going on in this blog a little bit. Or something.
-shrugs-
Tuesday, June 19, 2012
Fireflies and Mexican Food
I've been busy with not-slacking-off stuff all day, which consequently makes it hard to blog. I've been helping my friend do jobs around the house for my parents. My feet are tired.
I've also been looking for jobs. Or trying. That's also exhausting. On top of that, I ordered some books to sell by hand (or by mail). And deposited some checks. My life's full of mundane stuff right now.
I mean, it's not all bad. Not even close. There was some Brawl (which is peerless), and Casa Real. It's an authentic Mexican restaurant. I may have mentioned it before. Anyway, if you live anywhere close to Otsego, MI you should pretty much just drop everything and go eat their food. It is the best food.
I don't really have anything profound to say at the moment. No wait, here comes—
The fireflies are out tonight. They are a beautiful gift, those creatures. Dancing points of golden light whose choreography draws attention the landscape they fill. I pass moments of peace amongst these creatures and thank God for this world he made.
Also, Firefly is the best show. I saw that about a lot of shows. This one too. Watch it. Unless you can't stand sci-fi. Then just get out. Out.
Bugs are trying to eat my screen. Not the beautiful, shiny kind. The annoying, gnat-like kind. Time to put an end to this.
Good night, readers.
I've also been looking for jobs. Or trying. That's also exhausting. On top of that, I ordered some books to sell by hand (or by mail). And deposited some checks. My life's full of mundane stuff right now.
I mean, it's not all bad. Not even close. There was some Brawl (which is peerless), and Casa Real. It's an authentic Mexican restaurant. I may have mentioned it before. Anyway, if you live anywhere close to Otsego, MI you should pretty much just drop everything and go eat their food. It is the best food.
I don't really have anything profound to say at the moment. No wait, here comes—
The fireflies are out tonight. They are a beautiful gift, those creatures. Dancing points of golden light whose choreography draws attention the landscape they fill. I pass moments of peace amongst these creatures and thank God for this world he made.
Also, Firefly is the best show. I saw that about a lot of shows. This one too. Watch it. Unless you can't stand sci-fi. Then just get out. Out.
Bugs are trying to eat my screen. Not the beautiful, shiny kind. The annoying, gnat-like kind. Time to put an end to this.
Good night, readers.
Monday, June 18, 2012
White Knights and Writer's Block
I may have mentioned this before, but I don't particularly believe in writer's block. Despite this, though, there are times I set aside to write where nothing comes. I deeply suspect that during these times I just don't feel like writing. If I let this rule me, though, I'll never amount to anything as a writer, because I'll never write anything.
It's hard when I don't like anything that comes out of my head when I'm writing. There are some interesting ideas, but nothing cohesive, nothing that I think matters. If I'm not engaging with what I'm writing, how are my readers supposed to? Now, I've had readers most interested in the things about my writing I find the most dull, and I can kind of take that in stride. People have different preferences from each other. I still stubbornly seek objective goodness in my writing. It's just a frustrating battle to fight.
One thing that's quite popular lately in all kinds of stories is the anti-hero. This is the guy who doesn't even really want to do the right thing. There's also the edgy hero, like the concept of Breaking Bad (brewing/selling illicit drugs to keep a family afloat). I know that people are interested in this because it explores the space between black and white, and in our culture people tend to think the gray is more honest about life. I'm not like that. Yes, I'm admitting that I look at things in a more black and white way than most. But you might be surprised by what I call black and what I call white.
One of my main questions is "where's your heart at?" Not that I actually ask it aloud, or even think about it in as many words. I like to see when characters weigh their decisions based on the nexus of their motivations, emotions, and logic.
I get frustrated when things don't come out right in the end, or if people making horribly flawed decisions are the ones rising as the victors. I don't care for stories where no one comes to the rescue. It's not necessarily because I believe that that's what happens in real life, but because when I'm a very protective person. Because my first thought when I see someone in distress is how I can end that distress, it's hard for me to imagine that there won't be someone in the story who behaves as I would.
I know it's cliché to like the white knight, but I do. I don't think they're nearly as boring as they're made out to be. Because, again, that's my personality. It's not easy to be the good guy. If you're human, you're chock full of flaws you have to strive against, at the same time you're battling the injustices you see around you. But that's the way I see myself interacting with the outside world. Fixing things that are wrong.
That might be why I'm an introvert. Some things don't need fixing, or can't be fixed. At least not by me. It kinda gets you down, man.
That's also probably why fantasy appeals to me. Stack the deck in the favor setting things right. Because things are never going to settle right in this world, and seeing the real world in chaos is what I do every day. I don't want to keep seeing it in my fiction.
I want to see the chaos undone. Raveled.
Okay, this kinda got side-tracked. Anyway, sometimes I lose interest in writing in the confines of my current project. Like Talas Ke. I'm having some issues sorting out the ending. It's hard to finish something that's been around in my head for a decade. I need it to be perfect. And it isn't going to be. But I don't want to give up. Then there's writing poetry for songs. I had a couple good ideas, but now I don't know where to go without getting either repetitive or trite.
Thankfully, I can write about whatever on this blog, even about the issues I'm having with writing at the moment. And know that I'd rather bury myself in a writing project than go out and find a job. That's frustrating, too. Because I need a job like a good analogy needs to relate to the audience.
Part of the problem with temporarily living at home with the parents is the lack of space. It's also one of the few setbacks in marriage. At least on the surface, it seems like I'd be doing a lot better as a writer if I was single and living alone in a quiet apartment.
Balancing the great two great passions of my life is just going to get harder, isn't it?
Grenth's gory beard, life sucks.
:/
It's hard when I don't like anything that comes out of my head when I'm writing. There are some interesting ideas, but nothing cohesive, nothing that I think matters. If I'm not engaging with what I'm writing, how are my readers supposed to? Now, I've had readers most interested in the things about my writing I find the most dull, and I can kind of take that in stride. People have different preferences from each other. I still stubbornly seek objective goodness in my writing. It's just a frustrating battle to fight.
One thing that's quite popular lately in all kinds of stories is the anti-hero. This is the guy who doesn't even really want to do the right thing. There's also the edgy hero, like the concept of Breaking Bad (brewing/selling illicit drugs to keep a family afloat). I know that people are interested in this because it explores the space between black and white, and in our culture people tend to think the gray is more honest about life. I'm not like that. Yes, I'm admitting that I look at things in a more black and white way than most. But you might be surprised by what I call black and what I call white.
One of my main questions is "where's your heart at?" Not that I actually ask it aloud, or even think about it in as many words. I like to see when characters weigh their decisions based on the nexus of their motivations, emotions, and logic.
I get frustrated when things don't come out right in the end, or if people making horribly flawed decisions are the ones rising as the victors. I don't care for stories where no one comes to the rescue. It's not necessarily because I believe that that's what happens in real life, but because when I'm a very protective person. Because my first thought when I see someone in distress is how I can end that distress, it's hard for me to imagine that there won't be someone in the story who behaves as I would.
I know it's cliché to like the white knight, but I do. I don't think they're nearly as boring as they're made out to be. Because, again, that's my personality. It's not easy to be the good guy. If you're human, you're chock full of flaws you have to strive against, at the same time you're battling the injustices you see around you. But that's the way I see myself interacting with the outside world. Fixing things that are wrong.
That might be why I'm an introvert. Some things don't need fixing, or can't be fixed. At least not by me. It kinda gets you down, man.
That's also probably why fantasy appeals to me. Stack the deck in the favor setting things right. Because things are never going to settle right in this world, and seeing the real world in chaos is what I do every day. I don't want to keep seeing it in my fiction.
I want to see the chaos undone. Raveled.
Okay, this kinda got side-tracked. Anyway, sometimes I lose interest in writing in the confines of my current project. Like Talas Ke. I'm having some issues sorting out the ending. It's hard to finish something that's been around in my head for a decade. I need it to be perfect. And it isn't going to be. But I don't want to give up. Then there's writing poetry for songs. I had a couple good ideas, but now I don't know where to go without getting either repetitive or trite.
Thankfully, I can write about whatever on this blog, even about the issues I'm having with writing at the moment. And know that I'd rather bury myself in a writing project than go out and find a job. That's frustrating, too. Because I need a job like a good analogy needs to relate to the audience.
Part of the problem with temporarily living at home with the parents is the lack of space. It's also one of the few setbacks in marriage. At least on the surface, it seems like I'd be doing a lot better as a writer if I was single and living alone in a quiet apartment.
Balancing the great two great passions of my life is just going to get harder, isn't it?
Grenth's gory beard, life sucks.
:/
Sunday, June 17, 2012
Dad Gum
Today's Father's Day. I wrote my dad a letter. I know that sounds kinda lame, but writing is sort of my thing. So there's that.
There's nothing better for your life than a dad who does what a dad's supposed to be. Like be there, and live a godly example for you to follow. Not that I'm gonna be a doctor like him. It's not as simple as that. But yeah, my dad's pretty much my hero.
Unfortunately I spent a lot of my eloquence on the letter. Unless I'm stealing the witching hours after midnight, I usually only have so much well-thought-out prose before it dilutes. Okay, I'm pretty much just pulling that out of my ear, but I kinda feel like if I start waxing poetic about my dad and Father's Day here it cheapens it somehow.
If you have a dad who's treated you right, let him know. I'm not a dad yet, but I can tell you it will mean the world to him. And yeah, I know there's not a lot of time to do it officially for Father's Day. Well, you don't have to contain it within a day. I don't celebrate and thank God for saving me on Resurrection Sunday alone.
Homestuck is good. I kinda wish there was a way to get around the more crass elements of it so that I could share it with some of my friends who (rightfully, in my opinion) don't have the patience for that sort of thing. It's one of those dichotomies I think a lot about sometimes, the different spheres. I have a whole group of friends and family who don't use "swear words" or other vulgar language, not because they're holding themselves back, but because their dialects don't include those words in such places. And then there's a whole culture out there that has a very hard time imagining a day without dropping an f-bomb somewhere.
This goes into that whole "swearing" topic. I use quotes around the word "swearing" because I don't feel like the culture's been using the right word. Yeah, I know words like damn and hell are curses (or "cusses"), and there's the more disrespectful variants involving the various names by which people refer to our Creator which are like curses compounded with going against the direct instruction of the being who invented you (incidentally that's not a useful argument to use on an atheist because, you know, they don't care if they're offending a God they don't believe or care exists). But that oh so colorful word that still has nominal ties to sexual activity, and its counterpart about feces with the hissing and the fun hard "t" at the end, those aren't curses. They aren't exactly swearing either. I don't have any interesting in swearing by human waste, or by the procreational act. Incidentally, I ascribe to the not-swearing-at-all let-your-yes-be-yes-and-your-no-be-no philosophy, so you don't hear me promising things very often, let alone "cursing things out." I do have a habit of using the word "freaking" in several variations, and sometimes I call things "crap."
There's a reason "swearing" exists. You want to verbally vent your frustration, or to punctuate the degree of awesome you just experienced, without the use of the word "very" taking over everything. Or "quite." Or, you know, any other word that means "to a high degree." Because for some reason English speakers (or at least a lot of us) have reached a point where we feel like those words sound cheesy. There's also reputation to uphold, and for many "cursing like a sailor" gets them a reputation for toughness, that you're someone you don't "f" around with or else. Or something. I think there's this idea like if you want to be taken seriously you should slip some of the commonly accepted vulgar parlance into your dialogue once in a while.
And then, those of us who don't use that sort of language, and don't have that idea about it, have a hard time taking you seriously. But I think that's what some people want, too. They talk that way because the people they want to be with talk that way. It's the language of the culture, and in wanting to fit in, that's what they say. Not that it's totally a conscious choice. I read too much Homestuck at once and all the sudden I find myself censoring what I'm typing because there's stuff in it I don't want to be there. It comes naturally. It's part of, you know, the way our brains are wired. It's why the best way to learn a language is to immerse yourself in life with people who speak it, not to sit alone in a room studying it.
There's a reason I only speak English.
I have kind of a roller-coaster model when it comes to this phenomenon. Sometimes I don't bother with thinking deliberately about my idiolect at all, and sometimes it gets to be the most important thing in the world. Those moments don't last too long, but it happens. I'd like to make my language more of my language, my way of speaking, than just a product of who I spend time with. It's a bit of a Sisyphan struggle. But I try. What can I say, I'm a stubborn kid.
-shrugs-
There's nothing better for your life than a dad who does what a dad's supposed to be. Like be there, and live a godly example for you to follow. Not that I'm gonna be a doctor like him. It's not as simple as that. But yeah, my dad's pretty much my hero.
Unfortunately I spent a lot of my eloquence on the letter. Unless I'm stealing the witching hours after midnight, I usually only have so much well-thought-out prose before it dilutes. Okay, I'm pretty much just pulling that out of my ear, but I kinda feel like if I start waxing poetic about my dad and Father's Day here it cheapens it somehow.
If you have a dad who's treated you right, let him know. I'm not a dad yet, but I can tell you it will mean the world to him. And yeah, I know there's not a lot of time to do it officially for Father's Day. Well, you don't have to contain it within a day. I don't celebrate and thank God for saving me on Resurrection Sunday alone.
Homestuck is good. I kinda wish there was a way to get around the more crass elements of it so that I could share it with some of my friends who (rightfully, in my opinion) don't have the patience for that sort of thing. It's one of those dichotomies I think a lot about sometimes, the different spheres. I have a whole group of friends and family who don't use "swear words" or other vulgar language, not because they're holding themselves back, but because their dialects don't include those words in such places. And then there's a whole culture out there that has a very hard time imagining a day without dropping an f-bomb somewhere.
This goes into that whole "swearing" topic. I use quotes around the word "swearing" because I don't feel like the culture's been using the right word. Yeah, I know words like damn and hell are curses (or "cusses"), and there's the more disrespectful variants involving the various names by which people refer to our Creator which are like curses compounded with going against the direct instruction of the being who invented you (incidentally that's not a useful argument to use on an atheist because, you know, they don't care if they're offending a God they don't believe or care exists). But that oh so colorful word that still has nominal ties to sexual activity, and its counterpart about feces with the hissing and the fun hard "t" at the end, those aren't curses. They aren't exactly swearing either. I don't have any interesting in swearing by human waste, or by the procreational act. Incidentally, I ascribe to the not-swearing-at-all let-your-yes-be-yes-and-your-no-be-no philosophy, so you don't hear me promising things very often, let alone "cursing things out." I do have a habit of using the word "freaking" in several variations, and sometimes I call things "crap."
There's a reason "swearing" exists. You want to verbally vent your frustration, or to punctuate the degree of awesome you just experienced, without the use of the word "very" taking over everything. Or "quite." Or, you know, any other word that means "to a high degree." Because for some reason English speakers (or at least a lot of us) have reached a point where we feel like those words sound cheesy. There's also reputation to uphold, and for many "cursing like a sailor" gets them a reputation for toughness, that you're someone you don't "f" around with or else. Or something. I think there's this idea like if you want to be taken seriously you should slip some of the commonly accepted vulgar parlance into your dialogue once in a while.
And then, those of us who don't use that sort of language, and don't have that idea about it, have a hard time taking you seriously. But I think that's what some people want, too. They talk that way because the people they want to be with talk that way. It's the language of the culture, and in wanting to fit in, that's what they say. Not that it's totally a conscious choice. I read too much Homestuck at once and all the sudden I find myself censoring what I'm typing because there's stuff in it I don't want to be there. It comes naturally. It's part of, you know, the way our brains are wired. It's why the best way to learn a language is to immerse yourself in life with people who speak it, not to sit alone in a room studying it.
There's a reason I only speak English.
I have kind of a roller-coaster model when it comes to this phenomenon. Sometimes I don't bother with thinking deliberately about my idiolect at all, and sometimes it gets to be the most important thing in the world. Those moments don't last too long, but it happens. I'd like to make my language more of my language, my way of speaking, than just a product of who I spend time with. It's a bit of a Sisyphan struggle. But I try. What can I say, I'm a stubborn kid.
-shrugs-
Saturday, June 16, 2012
Games
Have you ever played Clue? It's a game of intrigue, and though I think many people (including, sometimes, myself) pass it off as a children's game, it's quite engaging when you get into it. You see, it requires you to use powers of logic and deduction in order to solve a puzzle before your competitors. I don't tend to like board games, and in that vein I tend to refuse to play Clue when called upon, but if I can be convinced to play I have to admit I rather enjoy Clue. I like puzzles more than I care to admit.
What I don't like are pure games of chance. Yahtzee, then, doesn't appeal to me much at all. This is especially true when I'm playing games in groups. I don't find games of chance to be good opportunities to engage with fellow human beings.
I've been playing Clash of the Olympians, which is a game made by the same developers as Kingdom Rush. It's a fun game, a well-animated flash castle-defender with the choice to play as Heracles, Achilles, or Perseus, defending against satyrs, gorgons, harpies, succubi, cyclops, griffons, minotaurs, and some sort of goblins. As Hercules you're hurling hilarious things, as Achilles spears, and as Perseus you fire arrows.
It's addictive, which is good for a flash game. Part of this is that the final levels are very difficult, and it often requires you to complete difficult mini-tasks in the earlier stages. So it requires a near-perfect performance from you. Oh man, games that stoke my perfectionism gather my time and attention like industrial-strength electromagnets. Repetitive tasks to receive a prize? Meh. Repetitive tasks that must be executed with perfect efficiency to succeed and receive the prize?
Whoa wait, it's Saturday already? Hold on, I just need to try this stage a couple more times.
To give up is to admit you don't have what it takes. That kind of failure is not an option. And succeeding? So. Very. Gratifying.
Well, I guess that's one way to demonstrate to y'all that I'm a gamer. There you go.
-shrugs-
What I don't like are pure games of chance. Yahtzee, then, doesn't appeal to me much at all. This is especially true when I'm playing games in groups. I don't find games of chance to be good opportunities to engage with fellow human beings.
I've been playing Clash of the Olympians, which is a game made by the same developers as Kingdom Rush. It's a fun game, a well-animated flash castle-defender with the choice to play as Heracles, Achilles, or Perseus, defending against satyrs, gorgons, harpies, succubi, cyclops, griffons, minotaurs, and some sort of goblins. As Hercules you're hurling hilarious things, as Achilles spears, and as Perseus you fire arrows.
It's addictive, which is good for a flash game. Part of this is that the final levels are very difficult, and it often requires you to complete difficult mini-tasks in the earlier stages. So it requires a near-perfect performance from you. Oh man, games that stoke my perfectionism gather my time and attention like industrial-strength electromagnets. Repetitive tasks to receive a prize? Meh. Repetitive tasks that must be executed with perfect efficiency to succeed and receive the prize?
Whoa wait, it's Saturday already? Hold on, I just need to try this stage a couple more times.
To give up is to admit you don't have what it takes. That kind of failure is not an option. And succeeding? So. Very. Gratifying.
Well, I guess that's one way to demonstrate to y'all that I'm a gamer. There you go.
-shrugs-
Friday, June 15, 2012
Modesty
One of my professors senior year pointed out a funny (odd more than humorous) truth to the class. When you buy branded clothing (like American Eagle, Hollister, Abercrombie, etc.) you're paying to advertise for the company. Now in theory this isn't so terrible a notion. For example, I would love to pay to spread word of mouth for Tobuscus, or Minecraft, or Legend of Korra.
But here's the deal: clothing companies follow fashion trends. They make short shorts and low-cut shirts because they're popular. And even if you happen to find something modest to wear (or if you're a guy) from the same clothing monopoly that caters to popular fashion, you're supporting that decision and advertising for others to also support that decision. If you don't buy the clothes but you wear them, it's still your fault.
Now, not everyone agrees that women ought to dress in a way that doesn't draw attention to the part of their bodies we actually communicate with. But if you're a reasonable person you'll agree that women of any age should have the option to buy and wear modest clothing without shopping at a thrift store or making their own clothes. I continue to hear more and more reports that this simply isn't possible—in fact, I've heard that it's even difficult to find something reasonable for my nine year old sister to wear.
There ya go, that's a bit of a ranty thing. I could try to tie it in with writing. In fact, I think I can, in a way.
You don't need to describe your dearly loved characters in exact detail. I used to be bad about this. I'd give every single detail of the person's height, hair color, eye color, and skin tone in the first paragraph they appeared in. Now, I tend to be bad about it the other way. The reader starts trying to guess at those details, and trying to compare the characters to each other. A middle ground is a good idea.
But if appearances have very little to do with the story you're telling, don't belabor them. Yes, unique appearances can make for some very memorable characters, and there is a reason that Hearthstead's stories are going to be told in more than just prose.
And sometimes, it's better to say that a woman is beautiful than to describe her feminine features in detail. Frankly, dwelling on that too long has no value to any story I'm interested in. So there's the tie-in to my modesty/anti-giant-corporations rant.
And that, folks, is a blog post.
Outs.
But here's the deal: clothing companies follow fashion trends. They make short shorts and low-cut shirts because they're popular. And even if you happen to find something modest to wear (or if you're a guy) from the same clothing monopoly that caters to popular fashion, you're supporting that decision and advertising for others to also support that decision. If you don't buy the clothes but you wear them, it's still your fault.
Now, not everyone agrees that women ought to dress in a way that doesn't draw attention to the part of their bodies we actually communicate with. But if you're a reasonable person you'll agree that women of any age should have the option to buy and wear modest clothing without shopping at a thrift store or making their own clothes. I continue to hear more and more reports that this simply isn't possible—in fact, I've heard that it's even difficult to find something reasonable for my nine year old sister to wear.
There ya go, that's a bit of a ranty thing. I could try to tie it in with writing. In fact, I think I can, in a way.
You don't need to describe your dearly loved characters in exact detail. I used to be bad about this. I'd give every single detail of the person's height, hair color, eye color, and skin tone in the first paragraph they appeared in. Now, I tend to be bad about it the other way. The reader starts trying to guess at those details, and trying to compare the characters to each other. A middle ground is a good idea.
But if appearances have very little to do with the story you're telling, don't belabor them. Yes, unique appearances can make for some very memorable characters, and there is a reason that Hearthstead's stories are going to be told in more than just prose.
And sometimes, it's better to say that a woman is beautiful than to describe her feminine features in detail. Frankly, dwelling on that too long has no value to any story I'm interested in. So there's the tie-in to my modesty/anti-giant-corporations rant.
And that, folks, is a blog post.
Outs.
Thursday, June 14, 2012
Dialects
So I know this has been brought up before, but what is the deal with us Americans and making the Elegant Other into British people? Just a few minutes ago we finished watching Thor. That has figures from Norse mythology speaking with vaguely British accents. Prince of Persia had white actors using those accents as Ancient Middle Easterners.
With Thor, you can't really blame the movie for this trend. From what I've seen of the comics, they talk with archaic English language. So the movie just kinda went with that. Really toned down in comparison, actually.
Maybe this is part of a larger problem that writers have to address when they are telling stories involving other cultures. In many stories, people who don't speak English are commonly "translated" into English when they're speaking. Some high fantasy authors invent languages to increase the mystique of these other cultures. And in many, many cases, people have differing dialects that often break the rules which are in place for the rest of the narrative.
Like in Huckleberry Finn.
So I guess there's probably a right and a wrong way to do this, but people tend not to agree on the subject. For example, I find that you have to be really careful writing dialectic dialogue, because you can make characters unintelligible or waste valuable time creating a flavor that isn't necessary to the story. But if one of your characters is from Jace and another is from Leyn, and the people from Jace live lives ordered around trade, the way the Jakind talks should probably reflect that way of life whereas the more agrarian Leynon would have entirely different turns of phrase to get his point across. That was a more obscure reference (in that unless you're one of two or three people you'll have no idea what I'm talking about) so let's speak a language a few more people might follow along with:
Like bilgesnipe, a well-used analogy in Avengers (though not necessarily on the part of the character using the analogy). They're beasts who don't exist on Earth so don't have a name, but they're a common, repulsive trouble on Asgard, so Thor naturally thinks to use them in an analogy, but the analogy itself almost falls apart until the God of Thunder is able to recover the substance of his intent: that Asgardian behavior on Earth has been unpleasant in the past.
Also from the Avengers, there's Captain America's elation at understanding the reference to Flying Monkeys as opposed to every other reference the characters were making. Part of the shades of the character dynamics in that movie is the kind of language the characters speak (and the personhood behind that language). Because Bruce and Tony are able to speak Tech with each other, they can connect over that—but the love of simplicity and the way that comes out in your attitude (and the way you speak) forms camaraderie between Bruce and Captain Rogers. Then you have Black Widow, who knows exactly what sorts of things to say (both with her mouth and with the rest of her face) to get the information she requires. Her interrogation technique is all about lines of communication. And when she talks about her personal interest in the events of the movie, she does so in economic terms, which is both an efficient way to remove herself from her emotional connections and a strong metaphor for the kind of debt she feels she owes.
There's a reason I liked the Avengers a lot. As I've said before, it wasn't just the pretty effects.
I think I've gone on long enough for tonight. Go get some sleep. Unless you're reading this tomorrow, in which case you don't necessarily have to.
-shrugs-
With Thor, you can't really blame the movie for this trend. From what I've seen of the comics, they talk with archaic English language. So the movie just kinda went with that. Really toned down in comparison, actually.
Maybe this is part of a larger problem that writers have to address when they are telling stories involving other cultures. In many stories, people who don't speak English are commonly "translated" into English when they're speaking. Some high fantasy authors invent languages to increase the mystique of these other cultures. And in many, many cases, people have differing dialects that often break the rules which are in place for the rest of the narrative.
Like in Huckleberry Finn.
So I guess there's probably a right and a wrong way to do this, but people tend not to agree on the subject. For example, I find that you have to be really careful writing dialectic dialogue, because you can make characters unintelligible or waste valuable time creating a flavor that isn't necessary to the story. But if one of your characters is from Jace and another is from Leyn, and the people from Jace live lives ordered around trade, the way the Jakind talks should probably reflect that way of life whereas the more agrarian Leynon would have entirely different turns of phrase to get his point across. That was a more obscure reference (in that unless you're one of two or three people you'll have no idea what I'm talking about) so let's speak a language a few more people might follow along with:
Like bilgesnipe, a well-used analogy in Avengers (though not necessarily on the part of the character using the analogy). They're beasts who don't exist on Earth so don't have a name, but they're a common, repulsive trouble on Asgard, so Thor naturally thinks to use them in an analogy, but the analogy itself almost falls apart until the God of Thunder is able to recover the substance of his intent: that Asgardian behavior on Earth has been unpleasant in the past.
Also from the Avengers, there's Captain America's elation at understanding the reference to Flying Monkeys as opposed to every other reference the characters were making. Part of the shades of the character dynamics in that movie is the kind of language the characters speak (and the personhood behind that language). Because Bruce and Tony are able to speak Tech with each other, they can connect over that—but the love of simplicity and the way that comes out in your attitude (and the way you speak) forms camaraderie between Bruce and Captain Rogers. Then you have Black Widow, who knows exactly what sorts of things to say (both with her mouth and with the rest of her face) to get the information she requires. Her interrogation technique is all about lines of communication. And when she talks about her personal interest in the events of the movie, she does so in economic terms, which is both an efficient way to remove herself from her emotional connections and a strong metaphor for the kind of debt she feels she owes.
There's a reason I liked the Avengers a lot. As I've said before, it wasn't just the pretty effects.
I think I've gone on long enough for tonight. Go get some sleep. Unless you're reading this tomorrow, in which case you don't necessarily have to.
-shrugs-
This One's Not What It Seems
I didn't take the time to blog yesterday. If I had, I would have talked about writing Talas Ke, which is what I did for much of the morning. Now, though, I have to post a video of me punching myself in the face. Here ya go. There's a good solid punchin' sound, too. Enjoy, I guess.
Tuesday, June 12, 2012
Impromptu Holiday
Today was a party day. Family friends arrived, my brother and his family came over, and my newlywed cousin and his wife came over. We had good food and good times hanging out, and I enjoyed it a lot. I am a bit tired, now, though, being introverted and all. Hopefully tomorrow I'll have some time to spend alone and work on writing or some such.
Also, I have a third reference, so I can start doing a lot more applications! That's really exciting.
About Ashes of Silver, by the way, if you don't have a credit card and you want the book, just message me on Facebook or Twitter me or something similar and let me know, because sometime soon I am probably going to be ordering a good number of books to sell in person around the Allegan area. Also, there's the bonus that you can get it signed (if you want).
Like I said, I'm pretty tired, and I can't think of much to talk about with writing today. I think that's the way things are gonna go when I'm busy, at least until I can get into that routine I said I should get into. I set my alarm this morning!
But I slept through it.
Maybe if I got to bed before midnight I can do that better. But I still have that college-kid compulsion to squeeze as much of the day as possible from the end of the day instead of the beginning. Silly me. I'm more focused in the morning anyway, I think. I repeat, I think. I don't know. I do know that I tend to do my more involved blogs in the morning.
I also know that I've done my most prolific writing between midnight and five in the morning.
-shrugs-
Also, I have a third reference, so I can start doing a lot more applications! That's really exciting.
About Ashes of Silver, by the way, if you don't have a credit card and you want the book, just message me on Facebook or Twitter me or something similar and let me know, because sometime soon I am probably going to be ordering a good number of books to sell in person around the Allegan area. Also, there's the bonus that you can get it signed (if you want).
Like I said, I'm pretty tired, and I can't think of much to talk about with writing today. I think that's the way things are gonna go when I'm busy, at least until I can get into that routine I said I should get into. I set my alarm this morning!
But I slept through it.
Maybe if I got to bed before midnight I can do that better. But I still have that college-kid compulsion to squeeze as much of the day as possible from the end of the day instead of the beginning. Silly me. I'm more focused in the morning anyway, I think. I repeat, I think. I don't know. I do know that I tend to do my more involved blogs in the morning.
I also know that I've done my most prolific writing between midnight and five in the morning.
-shrugs-
Monday, June 11, 2012
Music and Silence
So my direction falters yet again as to what I want to say in this blog. Sometimes time passes too slowly, and sometimes it passes too quickly, but it is always passing. The stillness of time is only a poetic image to contemplate.
Not to say stillness is nonexistent. It is. There is silence and stillness. In my most chronologically recent novel (the one I wrote this last semester of college), there is a silence so tangible it permeates throughout the entire book almost as a character itself.
I guess there is something to say of that in world-building. Pacing. The passing of time. It's one I have to admit I struggle with. How many words should I spend to pass the time of the narrative? Should I spring you forward with a word or fill the space of a moment with half a dozen chapters? Well, the first is a totally legitimate thing if nothing happens in that time that is important to the telling of the story, but if you're going to stretch time so thin as to make a breath last several chapters, you should probably be writing poetry, or a novel just about that breath.
I can see it being done fantastically, to be honest, but it would take a brilliance you shouldn't just assume you have.
Silence is a motif I find myself writing into a lot of my writing. One way I could look at this is by noting that my wife has at times compared me to a sea, which sometimes roils and sometimes rocks with waves, and sometimes it is very still, down to the core.
Since writing is among many things a reflection of the writer, I think it honest that I often write the silences into my work. And who knows, maybe it's leftovers from my musical training. Sure, you don't play on the rests, but their presence in a piece is as essential as the placement of the notes.
Music is something I don't often address in my writing. It can be a daunting task to approach the sundry world of music, especially in today's age when so many people have vastly different opinions as to what constitutes music, let alone good music. But it's also a very strange thing that I don't often broach music, because it's such an integral part of my life.
In Hearthstead (yes, I will keep coming back to this world) the primary people group of the story have little to no music. Other groups, ancient groups before the dragonwaste, have music ingrained deeply into their culture, but the stubborn survivors in the blasted lands don't sing or play music.
However, there's a character who might introduce these back into their lives.
My wife would love for me to get started on a sequel to Ashes of Silver as soon as possible, but as I said a while ago I've got Talas Ke to be concerned with. Maybe once that's done (whenever that is) I'll get back to prosaic forms of Hearthstead. For now, though, I'm going to continue to encourage people to get and read my book, and tell their friends. Also, job searching.
And I managed to get myself standing in another wedding. I like weddings. Especially friends' weddings. So I'm excited.
All right, I don't have anything else to say. Good night!
Not to say stillness is nonexistent. It is. There is silence and stillness. In my most chronologically recent novel (the one I wrote this last semester of college), there is a silence so tangible it permeates throughout the entire book almost as a character itself.
I guess there is something to say of that in world-building. Pacing. The passing of time. It's one I have to admit I struggle with. How many words should I spend to pass the time of the narrative? Should I spring you forward with a word or fill the space of a moment with half a dozen chapters? Well, the first is a totally legitimate thing if nothing happens in that time that is important to the telling of the story, but if you're going to stretch time so thin as to make a breath last several chapters, you should probably be writing poetry, or a novel just about that breath.
I can see it being done fantastically, to be honest, but it would take a brilliance you shouldn't just assume you have.
Silence is a motif I find myself writing into a lot of my writing. One way I could look at this is by noting that my wife has at times compared me to a sea, which sometimes roils and sometimes rocks with waves, and sometimes it is very still, down to the core.
Since writing is among many things a reflection of the writer, I think it honest that I often write the silences into my work. And who knows, maybe it's leftovers from my musical training. Sure, you don't play on the rests, but their presence in a piece is as essential as the placement of the notes.
Music is something I don't often address in my writing. It can be a daunting task to approach the sundry world of music, especially in today's age when so many people have vastly different opinions as to what constitutes music, let alone good music. But it's also a very strange thing that I don't often broach music, because it's such an integral part of my life.
In Hearthstead (yes, I will keep coming back to this world) the primary people group of the story have little to no music. Other groups, ancient groups before the dragonwaste, have music ingrained deeply into their culture, but the stubborn survivors in the blasted lands don't sing or play music.
However, there's a character who might introduce these back into their lives.
My wife would love for me to get started on a sequel to Ashes of Silver as soon as possible, but as I said a while ago I've got Talas Ke to be concerned with. Maybe once that's done (whenever that is) I'll get back to prosaic forms of Hearthstead. For now, though, I'm going to continue to encourage people to get and read my book, and tell their friends. Also, job searching.
And I managed to get myself standing in another wedding. I like weddings. Especially friends' weddings. So I'm excited.
All right, I don't have anything else to say. Good night!
Sunday, June 10, 2012
Mostly Beta-related
The Guild Wars 2 beta has been awesome. I'm a little concerned that they might not delete our characters after this one ends, though. Let me explain why that might be a problem. You see, if we go too many beta weekends with characters that are going to be deleted before launch, then we've grown really attached to those characters and it's really hard to just let them go like that. I've played the first twenty levels of my future guardian over the course of the last couple months, and if I go another month with her, I'm gonna want to just keep playing this version of the character on release.
And the problem with that is that it's unfair to those who are waiting to get the game on release, who would be woefully behind everyone who's been playing since May. So they should delete our characters when this is done. Sad, but I think it must be done.
I got to nerd out about Guild Wars 2 to my little sisters today. That was fun. We've been going on a good half-hour walk everyday for a while, so that exercise thing I mentioned a few days ago has been happening to an extent. That's good.
Also, we ate at an authentic Mexican restaurant for lunch. It's called Casa Real, and it's awesome. So delicious. So very, very delicious. Did I mention I like Mexican food? I do. Lots.
It's probably a good thing the beta weekend is ending, because now I can focus on other, much more important things. But this weekend has been very, very fun, and that was good.
That's all for tonight, folks. Ciao!
And the problem with that is that it's unfair to those who are waiting to get the game on release, who would be woefully behind everyone who's been playing since May. So they should delete our characters when this is done. Sad, but I think it must be done.
I got to nerd out about Guild Wars 2 to my little sisters today. That was fun. We've been going on a good half-hour walk everyday for a while, so that exercise thing I mentioned a few days ago has been happening to an extent. That's good.
Also, we ate at an authentic Mexican restaurant for lunch. It's called Casa Real, and it's awesome. So delicious. So very, very delicious. Did I mention I like Mexican food? I do. Lots.
It's probably a good thing the beta weekend is ending, because now I can focus on other, much more important things. But this weekend has been very, very fun, and that was good.
That's all for tonight, folks. Ciao!
Saturday, June 9, 2012
My Sister Is Awesome
I don't have a lot of time because I'm totally into the Guild Wars 2 beta. Today my little sister rocked out in her dance recital, which was awesome. I'm super proud of her.
Ashes of Silver is still published, and I've made a profit on it. I'm still really excited and happy about it. Now I'm enjoying the rest of this beta weekend. I don't feel bad about the brevity of this post because, well, I posted twice yesterday and BETA.
So yeah, talk to you tomorrow.
Ashes of Silver is still published, and I've made a profit on it. I'm still really excited and happy about it. Now I'm enjoying the rest of this beta weekend. I don't feel bad about the brevity of this post because, well, I posted twice yesterday and BETA.
So yeah, talk to you tomorrow.
Friday, June 8, 2012
Excerpts From Ashes of Silver
As I said in my update to the previous post, I'm going to release some excerpts from my book to give a taste of the sorts of things contained in Ashes of Silver. Don't worry, none of these are particularly spoilery (they're from early on in the book). Enjoy!
Excerpt 1:
‘They call this place Hearthstead. I was once a stranger to these lands.
I came during one of the worse summers of dragonwaste, when the dragons prey on the people because the beasts’ only threats are too few and too disinterested in human troubles to bother cleaning up their mess.'
--
Excerpt 2:
Someone rapped the door and pushed it open before Xlynx could finish painting the Rune. The intruder stepped in while taking a deep draw at a pint of beer, one hand pocketed in his waistcoat. He grinned the whole while, eyes glittering. Virol.
“Is there something you need,” Xlynx droned, “or are you pestering?”
Virol’s grin smoldered into a smirk. “Pestering, as always.”
Xlynx narrowed his eyes. “As that is the case, get out. I am occupied.”
The layabout didn’t leave. “I’d love to play historian,” he said. “Whenever I try it, though, I just end up rambling.”
“I shall be amused later. Leave.”
In a flash, Virol’s smile faded. Sometimes it would leave his mouth, but Xlynx had never seen it leave his eyes. Despite himself, Xlynx set his brush aside.
“I’ve come,” Virol said, “to tell you I’ve bought you some time.”
“Time?” Xlynx said.
Virol said, “Time to untangle snags and gather lost sheep.”
Xlynx smacked his desk. “You come in here while I am working, telling me you’ve bought me time to count SHEEP!”
Virol chuckled, and just like that the smile was back. He pulled at his beer. “I thought you liked cryptic, green-eyes.”
Xlynx stood, casting a small spell which rolled his stone chair back to become part of the wall again. He started to step around his desk, contemplating how to repay the insult.
“Oh good, you are listening,” Virol said, unmoved. “But, since I have to spell it out for you.”
He took his hand out of his pocket and held it palm up. An image of a man in black wielding a pair of knives appeared. Xlynx stifled his surprise at the spell. It was a devilishly complicated syntax. None of the mages in Hearthstead should know of this spell, let alone be capable of it, and never say this perpetually-drinking jester. But then, Virol always had a surprise up his sleeve. That was how he’d gotten into the guild in the first place.
The man was familiar to Xlynx. Marlom. The Shade. The Smith. The inner war of Dark Fire and Blank magic.
The image flickered, and suddenly it was Hinder. Xlynx had not seen that man since the Terrus hunt. A suit of armor walked beside him. Another flicker. Aera. One more—Sahl.
“You’ve only got one of them beside you,” Virol said. “They have united before, however briefly, and they need to again. But now you’re all after the same thing. Rest.
“You cannot rest, Xlynx. The world outside Hearthstead still moves. It’s time to stop treating your guild like a desk job.”
Xlynx glared at Virol, but Virol just glared right back. “Who do you think you are?”
Virol stuffed his hand back into his pocket. “Far too old, and not nearly old enough.”
--
Excerpt 3:
'For lifetimes, the Empire battered at our gates in the Umbral Valley. The Ebon sat in safety, laughing at the Endless while our warriors frustrated their might. We were reviled for this.
Our darker skin colors, our ever-green eyes, and our bone-white hair were all demonized.
Every new generation of Ebon saw a more ferocious generation of Endless pounding at our door. It only made us mock them more. For their short-sightedness. For their apish rage.
The siege of our homeland ended when the drakes came. In this time of war no drakes, Elemental or otherwise, resided on Hearthstead. They had their own land across the sea. According to some accounts, the Elemental Drakes fled their lands because they were hounded by the other drakes of that homeland—drakes that made the Elementals seem unimposing. Regardless, many Elemental Drakes migrated to Hearthstead and took up residence in the Endless Empire. It was enough of a distraction for the Endless to lessen their assault on our border. The Elemental Drakes began to work out a partnership with the Empire that may have proved mutually beneficial.
The partnership was short-lived. The Elemental Drakes were followed by their cousins the dragons. The Hydra dragged dragons into the sea, the Dracon summoned terrible storms, and the Salamanders wrestled them to the ground, but there were too many. I do not know how many is too many, but the accounts I have read indicate the sky was darkened by their numbers, and part of the scarcity of Elemental Drakes today is because of those lost trying to prevent the dragons from reaching the Endless Empire.
You may begin to detect a pattern here. I made a point of the might of the Endless to give the arrival of the dragons proper context. The Elemental Drakes fought their desperate battle because the Empire had no hope for survival.
One dragon in particular, Anbraax, led the swarm. They call him the Demon. He bested several Grand Drakes in combat to reach the Prolonged capital Vahalla. While fending off Alacrit the Grand Dracon and Vulcan the Grand Salamander, Anbraax unleashed his fiery breath on the city. It melted to the ground with most of the Prolonged in existence trapped inside. They died.
Whenever you hear the curse, “Anbraax’s breath,” be sure to remember that.
By then the Empire was already shattered. Half of it was gone. Those Prolonged who survived the pyroclast of Vahalla were scattered to the winds. Anbraax did not settle with Vahalla. He flew to Magmell and would have repeated his catastrophe there at the Persistent capital if Atlas had not emerged from beneath the earth at just theright moment. The Grand Wyrm sheltered Magmell from the blast. His hide was burned into the earth, but the Persistent capital survived, albeit buried beneath the drake who became a living mountain.
Anbraax was brought down then, by the spells of a mage named Marduk and the earth-shattering rage of Atlas’ mate, Tempus. Tempus ate Anbraax’s carcass, and the dragons scattered without their leader.
The damage was done, though. Atlas was irrevocably crippled. Tempus curled up beside him and has not moved since. They are a mountain range now. Vulcan’s mate was killed in the fighting, and the Grand Wyverns were also grievously injured. The empire that besieged my people for centuries was crushed in two days’ time.
And where were the Ebon when this occurred? We used our vast arcane knowledge to hide ourselves. Not a single Ebon warrior lost his life to dragons. You should know, too, that my people felt vindicated in this.
There is a reason I no longer live in the Umbral Valley.
If there is a day the name Hearthstead took on its bitter irony, it was that day, when one great city was melted into scrap and another was buried beneath its savior.’
PUBLISHED
Today is the day. I have published my book. Also, the GW2 BWE2 starts today, but that's not nearly as exciting. Because, you know, I have published my book! I don't want to ask you to buy it, but... please buy it! Also, tell your friends about it. Since I'm self-publishing this sucker, the best method for success is word of mouth. So yeah, tell people about it. Also, if you purchase my book and you want it signed, e-mail me at braveshield19@yahoo.com or Facebook message me to coordinate that. God bless you, everyone, and I hope you have as awesome a day as I'm having!
This link will take you to where you can buy my book:
https://www.createspace.com/3894289
In the coming week I'll probably put the link up on this blog, and I'll probably post links to Amazon (and especially the Kindle page for e-reading folks) both here and on my Facebook wall. For now, though, peace out!
Update: I figured I might give my blog readers a taste of what you'll find in Ashes of Silver, so in another post I will give a few excerpts of the book.
This link will take you to where you can buy my book:
https://www.createspace.com/3894289
In the coming week I'll probably put the link up on this blog, and I'll probably post links to Amazon (and especially the Kindle page for e-reading folks) both here and on my Facebook wall. For now, though, peace out!
Update: I figured I might give my blog readers a taste of what you'll find in Ashes of Silver, so in another post I will give a few excerpts of the book.
Thursday, June 7, 2012
Does It Appeal to You?
What's the appeal of world-building? You want an honest answer? The cool factor. If you're experiencing a world and you're like "awesome!" then that world was probably built successfully. You end up with concepts like balefire and firebending and spice that allows people to fold space and a world where all humans have a sixth sense for magic.
You have Dungeons and Dragons campaigns with whole histories behind them.
Some of my college friends and I spent some time inventing interesting races and detailing their histories with cultural/technological development. That was really fun, to have a badger-people and bat-people threatening war on a race of ostrich-people because the ostriches had enslaved some badgers and bats. Then a biology major joined us with octopus-people who communicated primarily by bioluminescence (if I remember correctly).
Epitomy of awesome.
I believe I've mentioned another benefit of world-building. The kind of story you tell is directly linked to the kind of world you build—as evinced by the importance of diction/word choice to the building of your world. The sweeping epic that is the Lord of the Rings tells a story of ugly war and the struggles of the small and the simple against the perpetrators of the war. And if you missed this part, the Hobbits and the Elves and the Dwarves all lose in the end, and Man is the ultimate winner. For now.
The story of the Wheel of Time series is all bound up in the cyclic nature of time in that universe. Time is a spinning wheel, and people are the threads of the tapestry it weaves. That's an actual metaphor pulled straight out of the series, and balefire burns people out of existence throughout time. Then there are Ta'veren, who unconscious weave the lives of those around them to their own purposes.
So you can world-build to explore world-possibilities other than the one we live in (as Wheel of Time does) or you can use it to talk about the world in metaphorical terms (as the Lord of the Rings does, and despite Tolkien's own aspersions toward allegory). I mention the word "allegory" in that parenthesis, but I'm not saying the Lord of the Rings is actually an allegory. For one thing, you don't have an allegory unless the author intends it (argue against that all you want, but I believe it to be true) and is skilled enough to accomplish it. LOTR has allegorical elements, which comes with the trappings of fantasy. There are metaphorical (or archetypical) parallels to the world we know and live in couched in the adventures of Frodo, Gandalf, and Aragorn. The reason I am not ashamed to love fantasy is because I believe it allows us to look at parallels to our own lives in a different context and think about them in ways I think are more honest than we otherwise can.
I'm not saying everything in fantasy has to be black and white, good and evil. Look at the Harry Potter series or at Gollum and you have some good case studies for morally complex storytelling in fantasy. I'm saying there's more room for stylization, and good stylization can sometimes be more real than reality (Up, Wall-E, Finding Nemo, Toy Story, and Monsters Inc. anyone?).
Do you know how much insane detail goes into the worlds of Pixar movies like Toy Story? Those movies make you believe, for a time, that toys are alive, and in the process say something important about the value of children (and the value they give to the things they love). That's what's "literary" about world-building. When done (and presented) well, it can make a story concept work that would be crippled without it.
So yeah, that's why I like fantasy, guys. Now go read A Wizard of Earthsea if you haven't already.
You have Dungeons and Dragons campaigns with whole histories behind them.
Some of my college friends and I spent some time inventing interesting races and detailing their histories with cultural/technological development. That was really fun, to have a badger-people and bat-people threatening war on a race of ostrich-people because the ostriches had enslaved some badgers and bats. Then a biology major joined us with octopus-people who communicated primarily by bioluminescence (if I remember correctly).
Epitomy of awesome.
I believe I've mentioned another benefit of world-building. The kind of story you tell is directly linked to the kind of world you build—as evinced by the importance of diction/word choice to the building of your world. The sweeping epic that is the Lord of the Rings tells a story of ugly war and the struggles of the small and the simple against the perpetrators of the war. And if you missed this part, the Hobbits and the Elves and the Dwarves all lose in the end, and Man is the ultimate winner. For now.
The story of the Wheel of Time series is all bound up in the cyclic nature of time in that universe. Time is a spinning wheel, and people are the threads of the tapestry it weaves. That's an actual metaphor pulled straight out of the series, and balefire burns people out of existence throughout time. Then there are Ta'veren, who unconscious weave the lives of those around them to their own purposes.
So you can world-build to explore world-possibilities other than the one we live in (as Wheel of Time does) or you can use it to talk about the world in metaphorical terms (as the Lord of the Rings does, and despite Tolkien's own aspersions toward allegory). I mention the word "allegory" in that parenthesis, but I'm not saying the Lord of the Rings is actually an allegory. For one thing, you don't have an allegory unless the author intends it (argue against that all you want, but I believe it to be true) and is skilled enough to accomplish it. LOTR has allegorical elements, which comes with the trappings of fantasy. There are metaphorical (or archetypical) parallels to the world we know and live in couched in the adventures of Frodo, Gandalf, and Aragorn. The reason I am not ashamed to love fantasy is because I believe it allows us to look at parallels to our own lives in a different context and think about them in ways I think are more honest than we otherwise can.
I'm not saying everything in fantasy has to be black and white, good and evil. Look at the Harry Potter series or at Gollum and you have some good case studies for morally complex storytelling in fantasy. I'm saying there's more room for stylization, and good stylization can sometimes be more real than reality (Up, Wall-E, Finding Nemo, Toy Story, and Monsters Inc. anyone?).
Do you know how much insane detail goes into the worlds of Pixar movies like Toy Story? Those movies make you believe, for a time, that toys are alive, and in the process say something important about the value of children (and the value they give to the things they love). That's what's "literary" about world-building. When done (and presented) well, it can make a story concept work that would be crippled without it.
So yeah, that's why I like fantasy, guys. Now go read A Wizard of Earthsea if you haven't already.
Wednesday, June 6, 2012
Archetypicality
It's hard to blog in the morning when you don't have internet. I spent most of the morning reconfiguring my family's wireless router so we could get on, then trying to get an old computer to download Guild Wars 2 for this weekend. It seems that the problem is that it doesn't have enough RAM to download the client, let alone anything else. Solution? I guess we're gonna go buy enough RAM to get to 4gb at some point. Then, maybe, the computer will work out.
I'm a little dazed this week, I guess. Having a heard time putting it together and getting going. Maybe I need to set my alarm for earlier. I dunno.
I've covered the importance of diction, word choice, and characters to writing, and how those apply to building the world your readers will see as they absorb your prose. In no way have I been exhaustive on those topics. There's almost always more to say. But I think I've given you an idea, at least.
One of the things I love about fantasy is the archetypes. To the other-trained eye they look like clichés: overused character tropes. But depending on the kind of fantasy you're telling, the wise and arcane counselor can be quite effective. It's always best, though, to try for new and interesting combinations—and keep diction and character in mind while you deal with archetypes.
There aren't just archetypical characters, like the Wizard or the Fledgling Hero. There are archetypical settings, too. Mordor is an archetypical Wasteland ruined by the villain. Swords of Power and Words of Power are both also archetypical elements.
So what's the difference between a cliché and an archetype? Basically, archetypes are old. Old like the Epic of Gilgamesh old. Arthurian legend is a good source of archetypical ideas, as are the epics of Homer and the canon of the Greek and Roman pantheons. The other thing about archetypes is that they are closer to allusions than to clichés, and by using them you are referring to and acknowledging a vast history of stories told. It's this past-reference that makes archetypes a good thing.
Here's what you have to beware of, though. It works for alternate histories, and somewhat more casual fantasy, to rely on thinly veiled archetypes. For example, there are characters with names like Marduk, Vulcan, Tempus, Leviathan, and Tiamat in the world of Hearthstead. That's because my cousin and I decided that one of the motifs of Hearthstead would be direct allusions to mythological figures and places. But Hearthstead isn't high fantasy. Again, that's not a mark against the world. But it's an identifier.
If you're doing high fantasy, it's expected you're building a huge historied world for your story to take place in, and if that's the case you really don't want a Gandalf stand-in. Someone very old and very wise? Okay. But a wizard with a giant beard who dies and comes back to life is not a good idea. You should probably also avoid taking names directly from the real world. No Zeus. Maybe you can take some names like Zachary, but ehhh maybe not.
This ties in to diction/word choice big time. It's best to have an idea of what the people of the world call things. You're probably writing in English, but if it's a fantasy world you most likely don't want to have everyone naming their babies and their places things like Philadelphia or Johnny. There's also the whole thing of not overdoing x's and y's.
If you're basing a world or a part of the world off of a particular mythology or real-world culture, using naming conventions from those are a good idea. Norse, for example, or Spanish. However, if you want mad props for creativity, spending a long time hashing out the nitty gritty details of names, their spellings, and their meanings is probably requisite—as is trying to veil any real-world ties as much as possible.
Even then you'll be using archetypes, for much the same reasons as you're going to have people in your story. Stories are retold with new (or mixed-up) contexts. Your job in world-building is to create a place with a set of contexts that's intriguing for the reader.
One story that does this very well is the Avatar series, actually. Not the movie Avatar with its uninspired story, but Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra. The former introduced a world where, basically, the whole thing is Asia, and people learn martial arts that allows them to control the elements. By "the whole thing is Asia" I mean the four main peoples of the Avatar universe are based on real-world Asian peoples. All the names, cultural motifs, and much of the spiritual/magical element of the show derives from this Asian center-piece. That's one reason why The Last Airbender movie was completely terrible. In The Legend of Korra, time has moved forward (pretty rapidly for fantasy) into what seems to be 1920's era city-life, complete with industry, high-inventiveness, and mangled city politics. The metropolitan lifestyle has affected many of the visual characteristics (such as fashion and ways of moving) but the Asian background is still there and still strong, including the fact that all the names are still created according to very not Anglo-Saxon conventions. This is a good thing.
So I talked a bit about archetypes and naming things today, and I'm sorry if it was a bit jumbled. I did say I was scattered. That's all I really have to say for the day. See you tomorrow.
Ciao.
I'm a little dazed this week, I guess. Having a heard time putting it together and getting going. Maybe I need to set my alarm for earlier. I dunno.
I've covered the importance of diction, word choice, and characters to writing, and how those apply to building the world your readers will see as they absorb your prose. In no way have I been exhaustive on those topics. There's almost always more to say. But I think I've given you an idea, at least.
One of the things I love about fantasy is the archetypes. To the other-trained eye they look like clichés: overused character tropes. But depending on the kind of fantasy you're telling, the wise and arcane counselor can be quite effective. It's always best, though, to try for new and interesting combinations—and keep diction and character in mind while you deal with archetypes.
There aren't just archetypical characters, like the Wizard or the Fledgling Hero. There are archetypical settings, too. Mordor is an archetypical Wasteland ruined by the villain. Swords of Power and Words of Power are both also archetypical elements.
So what's the difference between a cliché and an archetype? Basically, archetypes are old. Old like the Epic of Gilgamesh old. Arthurian legend is a good source of archetypical ideas, as are the epics of Homer and the canon of the Greek and Roman pantheons. The other thing about archetypes is that they are closer to allusions than to clichés, and by using them you are referring to and acknowledging a vast history of stories told. It's this past-reference that makes archetypes a good thing.
Here's what you have to beware of, though. It works for alternate histories, and somewhat more casual fantasy, to rely on thinly veiled archetypes. For example, there are characters with names like Marduk, Vulcan, Tempus, Leviathan, and Tiamat in the world of Hearthstead. That's because my cousin and I decided that one of the motifs of Hearthstead would be direct allusions to mythological figures and places. But Hearthstead isn't high fantasy. Again, that's not a mark against the world. But it's an identifier.
If you're doing high fantasy, it's expected you're building a huge historied world for your story to take place in, and if that's the case you really don't want a Gandalf stand-in. Someone very old and very wise? Okay. But a wizard with a giant beard who dies and comes back to life is not a good idea. You should probably also avoid taking names directly from the real world. No Zeus. Maybe you can take some names like Zachary, but ehhh maybe not.
This ties in to diction/word choice big time. It's best to have an idea of what the people of the world call things. You're probably writing in English, but if it's a fantasy world you most likely don't want to have everyone naming their babies and their places things like Philadelphia or Johnny. There's also the whole thing of not overdoing x's and y's.
If you're basing a world or a part of the world off of a particular mythology or real-world culture, using naming conventions from those are a good idea. Norse, for example, or Spanish. However, if you want mad props for creativity, spending a long time hashing out the nitty gritty details of names, their spellings, and their meanings is probably requisite—as is trying to veil any real-world ties as much as possible.
Even then you'll be using archetypes, for much the same reasons as you're going to have people in your story. Stories are retold with new (or mixed-up) contexts. Your job in world-building is to create a place with a set of contexts that's intriguing for the reader.
One story that does this very well is the Avatar series, actually. Not the movie Avatar with its uninspired story, but Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra. The former introduced a world where, basically, the whole thing is Asia, and people learn martial arts that allows them to control the elements. By "the whole thing is Asia" I mean the four main peoples of the Avatar universe are based on real-world Asian peoples. All the names, cultural motifs, and much of the spiritual/magical element of the show derives from this Asian center-piece. That's one reason why The Last Airbender movie was completely terrible. In The Legend of Korra, time has moved forward (pretty rapidly for fantasy) into what seems to be 1920's era city-life, complete with industry, high-inventiveness, and mangled city politics. The metropolitan lifestyle has affected many of the visual characteristics (such as fashion and ways of moving) but the Asian background is still there and still strong, including the fact that all the names are still created according to very not Anglo-Saxon conventions. This is a good thing.
So I talked a bit about archetypes and naming things today, and I'm sorry if it was a bit jumbled. I did say I was scattered. That's all I really have to say for the day. See you tomorrow.
Ciao.
Tuesday, June 5, 2012
The Rocket Summer, Bronies, and Legend of Korra
I spent much of my morning messing around with Scrivener, a word processor on steroids. It has some nice organizational tools, but isn't ideal to transfer existing documents into. Which is what I was doing, of course.
I'm just working with a trial right now. We'll see where it goes. -shrugs-
I'm not really prepared for another marathon blog post about writing, so I'll give you a break today.
In other news, my excitement for this weekend's beta event does not wane. A new Rocket Summer album came out today, and I want it. But the money, and the not spending it, and the infinite sadness.
My sister recently started watching My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. You know, the show that made bronies out of grown men? I can see the appeal, but not when she's been marathoning the whole show over the course of a few days. Then it's just kind of obnoxious. It's less so when you're watching it.
So I guess I just admitted to having watched it. -shrugs- No big deal.
Saw the new Legend of Korra today. That show just keeps getting better. Oh man. Nerdout. What really makes me happy is that Nickelodeon is being smart and posting (most of) their episodes online. That way they can make the money that would otherwise be lost to piracy. Because face it, people are going to watch this show online. It's awesome. The themes are slightly more mature than in Airbender, and the characters echo archetypes from that show while possessing their own personalities. So yeah, I like that show.
Gotta go.
I'm just working with a trial right now. We'll see where it goes. -shrugs-
I'm not really prepared for another marathon blog post about writing, so I'll give you a break today.
In other news, my excitement for this weekend's beta event does not wane. A new Rocket Summer album came out today, and I want it. But the money, and the not spending it, and the infinite sadness.
My sister recently started watching My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. You know, the show that made bronies out of grown men? I can see the appeal, but not when she's been marathoning the whole show over the course of a few days. Then it's just kind of obnoxious. It's less so when you're watching it.
So I guess I just admitted to having watched it. -shrugs- No big deal.
Saw the new Legend of Korra today. That show just keeps getting better. Oh man. Nerdout. What really makes me happy is that Nickelodeon is being smart and posting (most of) their episodes online. That way they can make the money that would otherwise be lost to piracy. Because face it, people are going to watch this show online. It's awesome. The themes are slightly more mature than in Airbender, and the characters echo archetypes from that show while possessing their own personalities. So yeah, I like that show.
Gotta go.
Monday, June 4, 2012
Character and World-building
I said yesterday that there's a beta event for Guild Wars 2 this weekend. I am immensely excited for this, and hope to spend a large amount of time playing. Maybe that old computer can even get set up for GW2 so I can play with my wife!
Running is my go-to idea for exercise, but I'm really bad about doing it. I should probably do it soon, but the internet! And the things!
And pizza!
Friday and Saturday I talked at length about diction and word choice and how they relate to writing (with a focus on Fantasy because, well, I'm me). I wanted to talk today about characterization and its utmost importance.
As far as I'm concerned, if you're going to tell a compelling story it requires at least one person at the center of things, experiencing and interpreting the world, and influencing it with agency. If there isn't a person involved, it's not a story in my estimation. That isn't to say it isn't art. There's quite a few poems where there's hardly an author's voice, let alone a narrator (though this is most often a finely crafted illusion because, you know, there's an author or at least an editor where there's words involved), and that doesn't detract from the artistry of the poem. Similarly, visual arts don't need human subjects to be artful or beautiful. They just aren't stories in my eyes.
Now you might mention wilderness documentary stories, like that Chimpanzee movie. But here's the thing: in those works, the creatures depicted are anthropomorphized. They're not people, and I believe they shouldn't be treated like people. That's why movies like that bother me. When things get more metaphorical it bothers me less, but animal movies annoy me because the stories pretend that these creatures are people.
I am making sure to use the word "person" because that is a more significant catch-all than human being. In my worldview, the only "people" are human beings (aside from God and maybe angels). However, there is a rich tradition of giving a non-human the aspects of personhood (self-cognizance and the like) throughout human history. It's a good exercise for the imagination. So I should clarify that the stories that bother me the most are the ones that are direct documentaries, especially of primates, that try to sell them as people when they're not.
So anyway, people are at the center of storytelling, because people are the origin of stories we tell. I also believe that God is a storyteller, and that he has imparted stories to us, and that our penchant for storytelling is part of His image in us, but that does not detract from the centrality of people in our storytelling.
I've said all this to contextualize why doing your characters right is as important to the world you build with your story as diction and word choice. It's also not one of the things you think about when you think "world-building." That phrase conjures to mind the imagining of geography and infrastructure and special laws outside the ones that govern our universe.
But all that mind-blowing stuff has no meaning and no purpose when not considered through the lens of character. It's hard for me to say this. I love world-building for the sake of it. Coming up with places and types of magic and different political systems is really fun. But I realize that if you don't have a character who reacts to the circumstances you've invented for him (or her, or it) you don't have a story. You just have a world. And it's harder to sell or spread the word about a world you built aside from within a story. You need a medium to convey the world you've carved in your mind. That's where the art comes in, and fantasy writing relates to world-building as a medium for that creation you've done.
In the series I worked on for most of my adolescence, called Talas Ke, there are two characters who come from (a slightly alternate version of) Earth, but spend the vast majority of the series on Talas Ke, the world I built. They bring all their prejudices, experiences, memories, mannerisms, and so on from Earth with them, and view the differences of Talas Ke in light of that paradigm. It's a fairly common formula, and because I started writing it when I was about twelve I wrote to discover, building the world as I went. Looking back, I see the world-building and storytelling I did when I first wrote that story as sloppy and sometimes ill-conceived, but I've been told by many of those who've read it that it works. Why?
Because they cared about the characters. I plunged my characters into the world that I had made, as shoddily as I might have made it, and made them live it. Because they lived it, and they reacted as fully as I could make them react, and as fleshed out as I could make them, I had invested readers.
Now, as I reflect to friends and family on my disappointments with that story, and express my need to revise it to a tremendous extent, I likely have some disappointed, invested readers. It's because of them that I haven't given up on Talas Ke and intend to return to the world soon, to finish what I started almost ten years ago. It's also because, in my slightly-insane writerly way, I owe it to those characters to finish their story.
Most of my short stories fail because I can't give the characters the roundness they need. Epic, mainstream, AAA endeavors in writing or in film fall short because the characters aren't written true to themselves and to the world. And do you know why the Avengers was such an awesome movie? Why it's a record-breaker? It's because Whedon wrote the characters well, and gave them their fullness to live in the world that was made. If the characters weren't well written, they couldn't have been well-acted, and then no amount of fancy special effects shots could have saved the movie.
If you agonize over anything when you're writing, let it be the characters. If you believe the characters, you'll believe the story, even if the world-building sucks or is just plain mind-raping. Homestuck, as another example, has characters I am invested in for better or for worse, and it's that investment that has me reading through all the appearifying antics and yellow yards. Characters are why I'm still reading the Wheel of Time series, and why after the first season of Game of Thrones I wiki-walked through what remains of the story, and might even read the remaining books as they are released. They're also why A Song of Ice and Fire hurts me deeply to consume as a story, because it punishes you for caring about characters.
And if it sounds too painful to agonize over your characters, know that it gets better over time. Maybe it's because you get more heartless, or maybe it's coming to terms, but unless you're a children's author you're very likely going to kill off a character you love at some point when you're writing.
I'd give some pithy saying, like "invest in your characters, and..." but I can't come up with the second half. So just that. If you're telling a story, invest in your characters, then build your world for them.
Running is my go-to idea for exercise, but I'm really bad about doing it. I should probably do it soon, but the internet! And the things!
And pizza!
Friday and Saturday I talked at length about diction and word choice and how they relate to writing (with a focus on Fantasy because, well, I'm me). I wanted to talk today about characterization and its utmost importance.
As far as I'm concerned, if you're going to tell a compelling story it requires at least one person at the center of things, experiencing and interpreting the world, and influencing it with agency. If there isn't a person involved, it's not a story in my estimation. That isn't to say it isn't art. There's quite a few poems where there's hardly an author's voice, let alone a narrator (though this is most often a finely crafted illusion because, you know, there's an author or at least an editor where there's words involved), and that doesn't detract from the artistry of the poem. Similarly, visual arts don't need human subjects to be artful or beautiful. They just aren't stories in my eyes.
Now you might mention wilderness documentary stories, like that Chimpanzee movie. But here's the thing: in those works, the creatures depicted are anthropomorphized. They're not people, and I believe they shouldn't be treated like people. That's why movies like that bother me. When things get more metaphorical it bothers me less, but animal movies annoy me because the stories pretend that these creatures are people.
I am making sure to use the word "person" because that is a more significant catch-all than human being. In my worldview, the only "people" are human beings (aside from God and maybe angels). However, there is a rich tradition of giving a non-human the aspects of personhood (self-cognizance and the like) throughout human history. It's a good exercise for the imagination. So I should clarify that the stories that bother me the most are the ones that are direct documentaries, especially of primates, that try to sell them as people when they're not.
So anyway, people are at the center of storytelling, because people are the origin of stories we tell. I also believe that God is a storyteller, and that he has imparted stories to us, and that our penchant for storytelling is part of His image in us, but that does not detract from the centrality of people in our storytelling.
I've said all this to contextualize why doing your characters right is as important to the world you build with your story as diction and word choice. It's also not one of the things you think about when you think "world-building." That phrase conjures to mind the imagining of geography and infrastructure and special laws outside the ones that govern our universe.
But all that mind-blowing stuff has no meaning and no purpose when not considered through the lens of character. It's hard for me to say this. I love world-building for the sake of it. Coming up with places and types of magic and different political systems is really fun. But I realize that if you don't have a character who reacts to the circumstances you've invented for him (or her, or it) you don't have a story. You just have a world. And it's harder to sell or spread the word about a world you built aside from within a story. You need a medium to convey the world you've carved in your mind. That's where the art comes in, and fantasy writing relates to world-building as a medium for that creation you've done.
In the series I worked on for most of my adolescence, called Talas Ke, there are two characters who come from (a slightly alternate version of) Earth, but spend the vast majority of the series on Talas Ke, the world I built. They bring all their prejudices, experiences, memories, mannerisms, and so on from Earth with them, and view the differences of Talas Ke in light of that paradigm. It's a fairly common formula, and because I started writing it when I was about twelve I wrote to discover, building the world as I went. Looking back, I see the world-building and storytelling I did when I first wrote that story as sloppy and sometimes ill-conceived, but I've been told by many of those who've read it that it works. Why?
Because they cared about the characters. I plunged my characters into the world that I had made, as shoddily as I might have made it, and made them live it. Because they lived it, and they reacted as fully as I could make them react, and as fleshed out as I could make them, I had invested readers.
Now, as I reflect to friends and family on my disappointments with that story, and express my need to revise it to a tremendous extent, I likely have some disappointed, invested readers. It's because of them that I haven't given up on Talas Ke and intend to return to the world soon, to finish what I started almost ten years ago. It's also because, in my slightly-insane writerly way, I owe it to those characters to finish their story.
Most of my short stories fail because I can't give the characters the roundness they need. Epic, mainstream, AAA endeavors in writing or in film fall short because the characters aren't written true to themselves and to the world. And do you know why the Avengers was such an awesome movie? Why it's a record-breaker? It's because Whedon wrote the characters well, and gave them their fullness to live in the world that was made. If the characters weren't well written, they couldn't have been well-acted, and then no amount of fancy special effects shots could have saved the movie.
If you agonize over anything when you're writing, let it be the characters. If you believe the characters, you'll believe the story, even if the world-building sucks or is just plain mind-raping. Homestuck, as another example, has characters I am invested in for better or for worse, and it's that investment that has me reading through all the appearifying antics and yellow yards. Characters are why I'm still reading the Wheel of Time series, and why after the first season of Game of Thrones I wiki-walked through what remains of the story, and might even read the remaining books as they are released. They're also why A Song of Ice and Fire hurts me deeply to consume as a story, because it punishes you for caring about characters.
And if it sounds too painful to agonize over your characters, know that it gets better over time. Maybe it's because you get more heartless, or maybe it's coming to terms, but unless you're a children's author you're very likely going to kill off a character you love at some point when you're writing.
I'd give some pithy saying, like "invest in your characters, and..." but I can't come up with the second half. So just that. If you're telling a story, invest in your characters, then build your world for them.
Sunday, June 3, 2012
For Whom the Bell Tolls
So my last two blog posts were a little longer. This one won't be.
Today, I stood and watched my cousin (one of my best friends) get married, and almost cried because I'm maybe a little happy for them I guess? And it was an awesome ceremony, a great reception, and a wonderful time.
Now those kids are off somewhere having an adventure, and I'm home after about three hours or more of riding in a car. It's super late, and I'm tired, but not tired enough to just let a face-punch penance happen.
Though I might have, if my wife hadn't reminded me.
Tomorrow starts a new week with the foreseeable future dedicated to figuring this life out. A little over a week till I get my proof to verify, and less than that till a GW2 BETA WEEKEND WOO!!!! In the mean time, more writing projects to agonize over, more job applications (and similar activities) to fill out/send, and some exercise to work into my (hopefully not too) busy routine.
I leave you with this: Nate and Christine Hunter, I know you might not read this right away (you'll be busy, I know how honeymoons are), but God bless you and your marriage. I pray it be as much a blessing to you as the last ten months have been for me. All my best wishes. I love you. Seriously.
Bed time.
Today, I stood and watched my cousin (one of my best friends) get married, and almost cried because I'm maybe a little happy for them I guess? And it was an awesome ceremony, a great reception, and a wonderful time.
Now those kids are off somewhere having an adventure, and I'm home after about three hours or more of riding in a car. It's super late, and I'm tired, but not tired enough to just let a face-punch penance happen.
Though I might have, if my wife hadn't reminded me.
Tomorrow starts a new week with the foreseeable future dedicated to figuring this life out. A little over a week till I get my proof to verify, and less than that till a GW2 BETA WEEKEND WOO!!!! In the mean time, more writing projects to agonize over, more job applications (and similar activities) to fill out/send, and some exercise to work into my (hopefully not too) busy routine.
I leave you with this: Nate and Christine Hunter, I know you might not read this right away (you'll be busy, I know how honeymoons are), but God bless you and your marriage. I pray it be as much a blessing to you as the last ten months have been for me. All my best wishes. I love you. Seriously.
Bed time.
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